Setting the Will to Love Christ

“Hey Sam, how's Barbara doing?”

“Terrible!” Sam replies with sorrow in his voice. “Not only is she doing terrible, but she looks terrible. Her sinful lifestyle is taking a horrendous toll.”

This conversation might well take place between two believers in any community as they express concern over someone who started walking with God, but for some reason faltered along the way, dropping out of the race. We've all seen people like this, haven't we? With a gush of emotion, they prayed the sinner's prayer and sprinted ahead like Olympic runners in the first steps of the Christian faith. Such beginnings thrilled our hearts, but now they're nowhere in sight. For some reason they vanished from our radar screens. And it's not because they left us in their dust. It isn't because they are light-years ahead of us in faith and exploits. For these reasons we might well rejoice for them. Rather than this, however, they have given up and left the race entirely. Tragically, they have returned to the world. They personify the true proverb that says, “The dog has returned to his vomit, and the sow has returned to wallowing in the mire” (2 Peter 2:22 ).

If they haven't disappeared completely, then they are what we refer to as come and go Christians. Folks like these seem to jump in and out of fellowship with God as quickly as a hooker jumps in and out of bed with unfamiliar lovers. They treat the King of glory like a mistress they can turn to whenever they want to, all the while hoping they'll make it to Heaven by and by. But such thinking is disastrous, as they will one day find out.

We have all seen people experience the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ with great emotion, only to fall away in a few short weeks or months. In these precious ones we saw great promise, but now they seem to be serving the Devil with more gusto than ever before. What happened to them? Wasn't their conversion genuine?

Do You Love Me?

Following His resurrection, Jesus thrice asked Peter, “Do you love me?” Peter was a bit annoyed that the Lord had to ask him this simple question so many times. However, it is the most important question every living person must answer. Simply believing in Jesus is not enough. Love for Him is as necessary as faith toward Him. Mental assent, which fails to engage the heart, is frail and unreliable. Hear what Paul had to say about the importance of love:

If anyone does not love the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed… 1 Corinthians 16:22

What a blunt statement! There is no way of escape for one who does not love the Lord! There are no loopholes or excuses that will exempt a person from the requirement to love Jesus.

And how must a person love the Lord?

Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Amen. Ephesians 6:24

The words “in sincerity” could equally have been translated “in incorruption.” In other words, for a person to truly experience the grace of God for salvation, they must not mix their worship and love to Christ with any other person or thing. A special place in each human heart is reserved for Jesus alone, and to attempt to fill that place with anything or anyone other than Him is anathema to God. And so, how important is one's love for Christ? It lays out the difference between life and death, blessing and cursing. Indeed, the peculiar feeling all true Christians should have toward Jesus Christ; a feeling that will clearly set them apart from everyone in the world, is the sincere, unspoiled love with which they hold Him in their hearts.

To illustrate the reason for his love and devotion to Christ, the Indian quickly gathered together some dried leaves and moss, and fashioned a crude circle on the ground. He then found a wooly worm and placed it at the center of the circle. Without delay he set the leaves and moss on fire, and watched as fear and panic swept over the lowly creature. As the flames rose up, and intense heat filled the circle, the wooly worm frantically looked for a way to freedom. Finding none, it crawled to the center of the ring of fire and curled up into a ball of despair. At that point, the Indian reached his kind hand through the flames and lifted the desperate worm from its hopeless predicament. While placing the little creature on his bosom, he turned to the Englishman with his answer.

“That is why I make so much of Jesus Christ!” said he to the Englishman. “Like this pitiful little worm, I was trapped in a fiery circle of despair, doomed to nothing but eternal woe and perdition. But Jesus reached into my misery and lifted me to the comfort and security of His bosom.”

When a person truly understands what Jesus went through in order to purchase salvation for him, and when he truly comprehends the hopeless predicament he was in, he will gladly “set his love on Him” (Psalm 91:14). The man who does not love Jesus in sincerity simply does not appreciate what he can be delivered from! To realize that “Hell from beneath is excited about us, to meet us at our coming” (Isaiah 14:9), should send shivers up and down the spine of every man or woman. Why would a rational and thinking person not want to embrace and love Jesus Christ with all of his or her heart?

The Peculiar Marks of Christ's Love
Many people in visible Christendom claim to love the Lord. However, that love is questioned when we watch how they actually live. Paul said, “For they are not all Israel which are of Israel ” (Romans 9:6). In other words, simply living among the Jews of Israel does not make a person a bona fide Jew. To be a true Jew is a matter of heart, not location. In like manner, all are not true Christians who are “members” of the visible Church on earth. As important as church membership is, if one does not love Jesus Christ, he is not saved. A true Christian is one whose religion is in his heart and life, not simply on a church roll somewhere. Throughout history, God has raised His eyebrows at those who draw near to Him with their lips, but whose hearts are far from Him. (See Isaiah 29:13; Psalm 78:36-37; Matthew 15:8-9.)

Genuine love for Jesus is easily distinguishable from a lack of love for Him, and you will see this distinction in the lives of many with whom you worship on Sunday mornings. True love for Jesus Christ cannot help but reveal itself in the lives of those who have it. Examine your own level of love for Christ by these identifiable marks:

1. When one truly loves Jesus, he or she thinks about Him often. In my own life, an hour rarely passes where I don't reflect on His wonderful name and presence. It seems Jesus is always at the forefront of everything I do. Hardly an hour passes when my mind is not touched with thoughts of Him or of things He is doing.
   
2. Those who love Jesus also enjoy hearing or reading about Him. Enter the home of a genuine lover of the Lord, and you'll see books, magazines or tapes lying around which indicate the persons fascination with Jesus. Where these things are absent, often there is a conspicuous absence of love for Christ.
   
3. If one truly loves the Lord Jesus, he or she will be obsessed with a desire to please Him. Jesus becomes the magnificent obsession of those who love Him! Because I love Him, I am glad to consult His tastes and opinions. Because I love Him, I am willing to deny myself so that I might meet His wishes. Because I love Him, I am willing to go to the ends of the earth to make Him happy.
   
4. If a person loves Jesus Christ, they will enjoy being with His friends. A common bond of love for the Savior will unite them. A person who claims love for the Lord, but who finds no pleasure in company with other Christ-lovers, may not love the Lord at all! After I received Christ, my circle of friends immediately began to change. If someone didn't love Jesus, they began to see less and less of me. Why? Because I thought I was better than them? No! But because I found more enjoyment in company with those who loved Him as I did.
   
5. When someone truly loves Jesus, they become jealous about His name and honor. It saddens a true Christ-lover when Jesus' marvelous name is used in vain, or when he hears an inaccurate or untrue statement made about Him or His Church. It hurts a Christ-lover when someone treats the Lord with any kind of disrespect. Just as a loving husband or wife cannot bear to hear the good name of their spouse trashed, so a true Christian cannot stand to hear the name of Jesus trashed.
   
6. True love for Jesus is also expressed through an overriding desire to commune with Him in the Word and prayer. Just as a love-smitten person will read and reread a letter from a lover, so a true Christian will delight to read and reread God's Word found in the Bible. Such enjoyment will also express itself in meaningful times of prayer and worship. Where these practices are lacking, something is drastically wrong with the level of love the person has for the Lord, and they need to again “set their love on Him” (Psalm 91:14).
   
7. Finally, a genuine love for Christ will show itself in a desire to be always with Him. Unfortunately, there are those in visible Christendom who only spend an hour or so with the Lord each week. This usually takes place on Sunday mornings. Such people merely “have a form of godliness, but [they] deny the power thereof” (2 Timothy 3:5). The Greek implies that they do not allow the force of true godliness to change them on the inside, to change their moral and ethical character, nor to increase the level of their devotion to the Lord. Such people are in enormous danger, because they do not walk in God's favor and protection; and yet they gain the attention of a malevolent devil who will do all he can to kill them. Because they sit still, they are sitting ducks. Because they are not moving upward and forward, they are easy targets. Neither Paul nor God considers them to be genuine Christians, and so they remain outside of and strangers to the covenants of promise. Where major portions of their lives are concerned they are without hope, and without God in the world. Jesus' covenant of power is subdued in their lives, and they have nothing with which to resist the devil and his minions. (See Ephesians 2:12.) Because of compromise, and the tepid brand of faith they exhibit, they run the risk of damaging everyone with whom they come in contact. Paul therefore exhorted true believers to turn away from such people. They are spiritual fence sitters! They are neither in the Church nor in the world, and they know not that the devil controls the top of the fence. They make both lousy Christians and lousy heathens. Alas, their shallow Christianity is harmful to those around them. Their corrupt devotion corrupts the pure faith of weaker Christians. They are the spiritual riff-raff God is prone to “spew out of His mouth” (Revelation 3:16 ). They are like the “mixed multitude” that left Egypt with Israel , and who caused nothing but trouble wherever they went. So let me ask you, beloved; do you love Jesus?

Saved by Grace, BUT…

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God. Ephesians 2:8

Without our earning it, God has freely offered each of us a great deliverance from eternal wrath and punishment. Rather than suffer the terror and agony of everlasting banishment from the presence of God, we can now live forever in His presence. He has offered everyone the grace to be grafted, as a wild olive branch, into the holy and righteous root—the family of God. Nothing we do can earn this privilege—no righteous deed, financial gift, or self-righteous lifestyle. The only thing God requires is that we repent, believe and love Him. To repent means that we change our minds about matters of spiritual and moral importance, adopting the Biblical perspective on all matters of life and death. It also means that we turn from going our own way in life, and begin to go His way, and to walk in His paths. Repentance means that we decide to love Him as the most important Person in our lives. Only His grace can grant us this ability, and yet, not to utilize it when it is offered is grievous and sinful.

With unquestionable clarity, Paul declared that God “now commands all men everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30 ). No one, then, has an excuse! The price has been paid, the command has gone forth, and everyone has a particular “window of opportunity” in which to hear and respond. That window is comprised of the days of our lives. It is more than a soap opera; it is of eternal significance! For some, the window is opened only briefly, for others, it is opened a little longer. Only God decides when that window will close on each of our lives.

Some men are counting on a deathbed experience with Christ. They entertain the idea that they can live life to suit themselves, and then just days prior to death, make things right with God. I tell such fools not to count on it! I find that most men and women die as they have lived, and if they have trained themselves to reject Christ early in life, they will reject Him later in life as well. A person cannot turn saving faith on and off like it's a light switch or a TV set. Only God's grace can do that.

In closing, friend, I ask you to give serious consideration to the love you presently have for Jesus. Is it a love that is sincere, incorrupt, and solid? Or is it a shallow and deceptive love? You must decide which it will be in your life. Do not jump to a snap decision regarding this question, but pray it through in earnestness. If you desire a genuine and unfeigned love for Christ, then begin to seek Him intently in some private place. Pull apart from everyone else and begin crying out to the Holy Spirit, asking Him to create this deeper love inside you. Remember, the effectual and fervent prayer of a righteous man or woman avails much—so pray fervently! God's grace is to all those who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Amen.