I Think I Love Jesus

This is going to be an autobiographical, philosophical ramble. If the thought of poking around inside my head is not a pleasant one for you, you are excused. My wife, Karen, regularly chides me for thinking too much. She is usually correct; when I imagine bad motives for someone’s action, or when I create a dilemma of my own making, I am probably overthinking. It is the latter case that I am going to sort through in this piece.

I want to start by defending philosophy. The word scares or bores some people because they picture dusty classrooms and boring lectures. That’s understandable but not fair. A philosophy is merely a way of seeing things. It is often called a world view. Everyone has one whether they know it or not. We all look at the world through a filter of some kind. If we didn’t, the jumble of unrelated data would drive us crazy. We make sense of things by choosing to see them through our world view – our philosophy. Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living. I recommend examination. Commenting on James 1:25 John MacArthur says, “If you desire to be like Christ… you must continually examine your life in the light of Scripture.” (Drawing Near—Daily Readings for a Deeper Faith (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1993)

I am not going to categorize all the potential philosophies that people choose from. I will simply say that there are worldly world views and biblical world views. I choose the biblical. I attempt to make everything fit into a biblical framework. I hope to operate according to the truth as I understand it from God’s Word. This is how I sometimes stumble into a dilemma of my own making. Some things are easy to sort: murder is wrong, so abortion is wrong; hate is wrong, so homophobia, xenophobia, misogyny, and a host of other things are clearly not biblical. Materialism places things above God, so that is idolatry – very wrong. Those are some of the easy ones.

There are many that are not so easy. For the last many months, perhaps years, I have been troubled by my lack of emotion when I consider my love for Jesus. I desire to love Jesus, but I find it difficult. I “feel” I am not worthy to love Jesus. I find it difficult to imagine Jesus wanting my love. If a cockroach expressed love to me, what would it mean? If that sounds outrageous, remember that in God’s Word humans are likened to worms. I love what Jesus did for me culminating in His horrible death on the cross. I understand what that means for me intellectually, but I don’t usually “feel” love when I consider it.

Here then is my dilemma. I put “feel” in quotes because my biblical world view places feelings in my soul. My relationship with Jesus is primarily spiritual, at least in my present state. If I love Jesus only for what He did for me, that is transactional love – love based on an exchange. He did something wonderful for me, so I love Him for it. It’s a trade. There are no feelings involved on my part; that worries me. I sense that something is missing because I believe the Bible teaches that humans consist of body, soul, and spirit. If my love for Jesus is merely transactional, I fear it is not genuine love.

Karen and I were discussing this the other day and she helped me to see that the love the Bible speaks of, agape love, is given to us by the Holy Spirit. It is even called a fruit of the Spirit. Paul says that kind of love is poured out in our hearts by the Spirit. That being the case, biblically, I might have genuine love flowing out of my spirit to Jesus and not necessarily “feel love” in my soul.

While I am comfortable with that thought, I still think I am missing something. I wrote “More Than a Feeling” some time ago to correct myself for thinking that agape love wasn’t supposed to “feel” like love. The Bible is full of examples of God’s pure agape love for His people that are fraught with feeling. Agape may not be primarily a feeling, but in its richest form, it is not devoid of feeling.

I remember reading years ago about Mother Theresa in her final years. She admitted that she had lost the feeling that drove her earlier ministry. Still, she persisted in her calling to the end. John of the Cross speaks of the dark night of the soul when one might wonder if God has abandoned him. What did Jonah feel in the belly of the fish; what did Paul think as his ship was dashed upon the rocks; what did Jesus Himself think in the Garden of Gethsemane or on the cross when He cried, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” I am beginning to think that one of our deepest human frailties is the imperfect interface of soul and spirit within us. One day, after our resurrection to eternal life, they will be perfectly united; until that day, philosophers like me will question the legitimacy of our love.

You don’t have to go there with me. Karen, bless her soul, does not. She is perfectly happy with her experience of loving Jesus without questions. I envy her. Jesus said unless I become like a little child, I will never see the kingdom of heaven. I parsed that through my biblical philosophy and came up with the idea that simplicity is the hallmark of true faith. I have a tendency to complicate things that are really quite simple. That’s the philosopher in me. Perhaps it is just as Karen keeps telling me: I have to stop thinking so much.

However, through this process, I have come up with another word that plays into the concept of loving Jesus: devotion. I believe devotion leans into the side of agape love that requires an act of our human will. Jesus didn’t shy away from it when He declared, “If you love me, keep my commandments.” In the same way that my devotion to my marriage vows demands sacrificial obedience on my part, my devotion to Jesus requires obedience driven by love.

John MacArthur, in his commentary on Jesus’ dismissal of those who claimed to serve Him but were rejected, says, “Matthew 7:21–23 records the tragic results of spiritual delusion…. Jesus made a clear distinction between those who merely claim to be Christians and those who truly are. The difference is, true believers do the will of the Father from a pure heart. In the words of James, they are doers of the Word, not merely hearers who delude themselves.” If my motivation to follow a biblical world view (aka to obey Jesus) is from a pure heart, I think I am safe within the fold. I think I really do love Jesus.

Related Posts: On transactional love: To Love Mercy; More on delusion: Are You Qualified? Also Weak-day Christians