Articles
"Do You Love Me?"
After Jesus had risen from the dead, and before He ascended into heaven, He met with the apostles on several occasions. The third time they met was when the some of the disciples had been fishing all night in the Sea of Tiberias [i.e., the Sea of Galilee] and had caught nothing (John 21:1-5). They did not recognize Him at first, while He stood on the shore, and He told them, “Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some” (John 21:6). They did as He told them and drew in so many fish they were not able to pull the net into the boat.
After they had come to shore and eaten, Jesus turned to Simon Peter and asked him, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me more than these?” (John 21:15). Peter answered, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” Jesus asked him again, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?” and Peter answered again, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You” (John 21:16). Jesus asked him the third time, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?” and by this time Peter was grieved at being asked the same question now three times, and answered, “Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You” (John 21:17).
Commentators and preachers have often cited the fact Jesus asked Peter if he loved Him with a sacrificial love, only to have Peter answer that he loved Jesus with the love of a friend. There is certainly some deeper lessons we could gain from considering this exchange, but I want us to go a different direction today; today, let’s ask the same question of ourselves that Jesus asked Peter: Do we love Him?
I am fairly certain most of us would like to answer in the affirmative, if we profess to be His disciples [Christians], but do we really love Jesus? This is not a mere mental challenge or a role-playing exercise; this is a question we need to answer and, if we truly seek to be pleasing to Him, be able to answer honestly and with the answer He wants to hear. To put it plainly: If we claim to love Jesus, then we must meet His definition of love. We don’t get to define our love for Him; we don’t get to determine when we love Him; we don’t get to say what is or is not love.
I have heard and read some say, “To know Jesus is to love Him,” and I don’t know that I could argue with that. The problem, though, is that some don’t really know Jesus and the ‘Jesus’ they love isn’t the Jesus who walked this earth 2000 years ago — the Jesus of the Bible. I say this because I have heard many times someone respond to the very words of Jesus, “Well, the Jesus I know wouldn’t say that!” Well, they are right; the ‘Jesus’ they know wouldn’t say what the true Jesus said because they believe in the wrong Jesus! They have invented a ‘Jesus’ who agrees 100% with them, rather than searching to learn what the true Jesus actually did teach. They would not love the true Jesus because He teaches some hard things and demands some hard things and excludes some from the kingdom of heaven because they refuse to repent of sin or hide hatred in their hearts or hide a love for sin in their hearts…and a hundred other things that their ‘Jesus’ would never teach or demand of them.
So, as we consider whether or not we truly love Jesus, let us first ask and determine whether we actually know the real Jesus, before we claim to love Him. It could be that the ‘Jesus’ we love is simply a representation of the beliefs we want to believe, and in no way fits the description of the Jesus found in the Bible, and this ‘Jesus’ we love does not teach what the true Jesus taught. Let’s not deceive ourselves, friends and brethren, because the true Jesus knows not just if we love Him, but He also knows if we truly know Him.
Now, if we have determined that it is truly Jesus we know [that is, the Jesus found in Scripture], then we can get to the question about whether or not we love Him. Here, we must let Jesus define that love; we must let Him tell us how that love is demonstrated; we must let Him alone make these determinations and realize we have no say in the matter. In other words, when we find how Jesus defines this love and whether or not we have that kind of love, we have no right to argue with Him about it. We cannot look to see how Jesus defined this love and then say, “Well, I know, but…”; we either accept it or reject it, but there is no room for argument.
So, how does He define our love? How is it demonstrated? He said it very simply: “If you love Me, keep My commandments” (John 14:15). He would state it again later in that same context: “He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me” (John 14:21), and again, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word” (John 14:23). John echoed this in one of his later epistles, saying it plainly and simply, too: “He who says, ‘I know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him” (1 John 2:4). With these passages, can we really argue that obedience is not necessary? More importantly, now that we know how He defines our love for Him, do we really love Jesus?
Let’s turn this around for a minute before we conclude: Does He love us? That is a reasonable question, if He asks if we love Him. Let’s let the Scriptures answer this, too. It is there we find, “Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God” (Eph. 5:2); we learn Christ “loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood” (Rev. 1:5). We find that the apostle Paul put it in very personal terms, saying, “I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2:20). So, to answer the question of whether or not Jesus loved us: YES, He loved us.
And for those who know of the love of Christ for all men and, concurrently, the love of God for all men (cf. John 3:16), we may open our hearts to love Christ and love God without reservation because we know this isn’t a scam; we can trust that this love for us is genuine and that it is unending, as God has so defined love (cf. 1 Cor. 13:8). For those who know this, it really is not a question of whether or not we should love Him; as John put it, “We love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). We who believe and who love the Lord and our heavenly Father do so because we know of the love that has been shown to us, though we are greatly undeserving of that love — and especially that degree of love. We love Jesus and we love the Father because we are overwhelmed with the thought that the all-powerful, all-knowing God and Creator of the universe deems to look down at His lowly Creation and bothers to give us a second thought — and a second chance.
Let me just say this: If the love of God and the love of Christ does not compel to you to reciprocate that love — demonstrated, of course, by our obedience to Jesus Christ — then nothing else will. I don’t have anything else to motivate you. As the apostle Paul once put it, “the love of Christ compels us” (2 Cor. 5:14); it compels us to love Him back, to keep His commandments, and to love our fellow man (cf. 1 John 4:11; John 13:34, 35).
On this ‘day of love’ and in this ‘month of love,’ think about the greatest love that has ever been shown — God’s love for man, and Christ’s love for man — and think about what it means to you; make it your pursuit to respond to that love by returning the love in kind. After all, the greatest command is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matt. 22:37).
Of all the things we could do, the greatest is to love. — Steven Harper
