What It Means to Love Jesus

Love jesus

“If you love me…” (John 14:15)

We do love the Lord, right? We would love to express our love to Him in His own love language, right?

We love Him because He first loved us, right? (That’s I John 4:19.)

The question then is “How exactly do we express our love to Him?” With flowers and candy? With huge gifts? Quick prayers before bedtime? Maybe if I’m baptized and join the right church? Should I tithe? Should I read the Bible through? Go to Sunday School?

What does He want? What would make Jesus feel loved?

The Old Testament answer to the question…

The prophet Micah was wrestling with this very question when he asked, “With what shall I come before the Lord? And bow myself before the High God?”

That is to say, “What possible thing could I do on earth that would please God in Heaven?”

How can pitiful earthlings ever possibly do anything that would please the Creator and Lord of the universe, He who owns it all in the first place?

Micah considers some possibilities: “Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings? Perhaps with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or ten thousand rivers of oil?”

Or, if you want to get pagan about it, “Shall I give my firstborn for my transgressions? The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”

Child sacrifice was considered by God the most abominable of all sins. Scripture refers to this as a sacrifice to the god Molech, and when Israelites do it Heaven itself is horrified. God says, “which I did not command or speak, nor did it come into my mind” (Jeremiah 19:5). The very idea!

Then, Micah answered his own question: “He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:6-8).

Nothing wrong with that. It’s a great statement, as attested by the large number of t-shirts that statement adorns even now.