Demand #5
LOVE ME
Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,
and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of
me.—Matt. 10:37
Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me,
for I proceeded and came forth from God.”—John 8:42, RSV
JESUS COMMANDS THE EMOTIONS
I recall reading a book in college that argued: Love cannot be a feeling
because it is commanded, and you can’t command the feelings. In
other words, love must simply be an act of the will or a deed of the
body without involving the emotions or affections. But the problem
with this argument is that the premise is false: Jesus does command the
feelings. He demands that our emotions be one way and not another(1*)
(1*) The most thorough study on emotions in the New Testament is now Matthew Elliott’s
Faithful
Feelings: Emotion in the New Testament (Leicester, England: Inter-Varsity Press, 2005). He
writes, “Part of the essence of the Christian is how he or she feels. We must recover some of
the insight of Jonathan Edwards, Calvin, Augustine and others as they rightly emphasize the
role of emotion in the believer’s life. With a little work we can come up with a clear idea of the
emotional characteristics of the members of the kingdom of God. They love God and each
other, they take joy in what Jesus has done in the past and what he will do in the future. They
have secure hope that God will triumph. They become angry at sin and injustice and are jealous
for God. They embrace the sorrow of the suffering as their own and grieve over sin. But this
emotional life is rarely glimpsed in our theologies where emotion is not emphasized as a sign of
true faith. Not only do Christians live the ethics of the kingdom, they also feel the attitudes and
emotions of the kingdom. This is part of the picture that is very clear in the New Testament.
These feelings are a result of good theology and are a necessary component of faith” (263-264).
He demands, for example, that we rejoice in certain circumstances
(Matt. 5:12), and that we fear the right person (Luke 12:5),
and that we not feel shame over him (Luke 9:26), and that we forgive
from the heart (Matt. 18:35), and so on. If a feeling is proper
to have, Jesus can demand it. The fact that I may be too corrupt to
experience the emotions that I ought to have does not change my
duty to have them. If Jesus commands it, I should have it. My moral
inability to produce it does not remove my guilt; it reveals my corruption.
It makes me desperate for a new heart—which Jesus came
to give (see Demand #1).
LOVE FOR JESUS IS NOT LESS THAN DEEP AFFECTION
Jesus’ demand that we love him may involve more than deep feelings
of admiration for his attributes and enjoyment of his fellowship
and attraction to his presence and affection for his kinship, but it
does not involve less. At least two things that he said show this. He
said, for example, that our love for him must exceed the love we have
for mother and father and son and daughter. “Whoever loves father
or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves
son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matt. 10:37).
The love that binds us to these relationships is not mere willpower.
It is deep with affection. Jesus says that the love we must have for
him is not less than that, but more.
The other evidence that Jesus requires our love to be more than
good deeds is in John 14:15. Jesus said, “If you love me, you will
keep my commandments.” Sometimes people use these words to say:
Loving Jesus is keeping his commandments. That’s not what it says.
It says that keeping Jesus’ commandments comes from our love for
him. It does not separate deeds from love, but it does distinguish
them. First we love him. Then because of this—overflowing from
this—we do what he says. Love is not synonymous with commandment-
keeping; it is the root of it. So the love that Jesus demands is
something very deep and strong—like the closest family bonds of
affection that we have, but greater than that and more than that.
LOVE FOR JESUS SPRINGS FROM A NEW NATURE
Jesus’ demand to be loved like this implies that we must have a new
nature—a new heart. How else can we love someone we have never
seen more affectionately than we love our dear children? Loving
like this is not in our fallen human nature. Jesus made this plain
when he said to those who did not love him, “If God were your
Father, you would love me” (John 8:42). In other words, “The reason
you do not love me is that you are not in the family of God.
You don’t have the family nature—the family spirit, the family heart,
preferences, tendencies, inclinations. God is not your Father.”
Jesus came as God’s unique, divine Son (Matt. 11:27) so that
fallen sinners like us could become non-divine sons of God with
hearts and ways like his. “To all who did receive him, who believed
in his name, [Jesus] gave the right to become children of God” (John
1:12). That’s why Jesus could say, “Love your enemies . . . and you
will be sons of the Most High” (Luke 6:35). Through the new birth
(Demand #1) and faith (Demand #4), Jesus gives us the rights and
the inclinations of the children of God. At the center of those inclinations
is love for Jesus, God’s Son.
HE WHO IS FORGIVEN LITTLE, LOVES LITTLE
How God enables us to love Jesus more than we love our closest
friends and relatives is not a total mystery. The gift of the new birth and
repentance—the new nature of a child of God—is brought about
through seeing the glory of Jesus’ love for us. Jesus taught this
provocatively at a dinner party. A strict Pharisee, who had little love for
Jesus, invited Jesus to dinner. While they were reclining at the low Middle-
Eastern table, a prostitute entered and poured ointment—mingled
with her tears—on Jesus’ bare feet and wiped his feet with her hair. The
Pharisee was indignant that Jesus would allow this.
So Jesus asked a question of the Pharisee: If a moneylender forgave
two debtors, one who owed him five thousand dollars and the other fifty,
which would love him more? He answered, “The one, I suppose, for
whom he cancelled the larger debt.” Jesus agreed, then said, “Do you see
this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet,
but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You
gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss
my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my
feet with ointment.” Then Jesus concluded: “She loved much. But he
who is forgiven little, loves little” (Luke 7:36-48).
This is a story about the way great love for Jesus comes into
being. It comes into being when we are given eyes to see the beauty
of Jesus in the way he loved us first. We did not love him first. He
loved us first (John 15:16). Our love for Jesus is awakened when
our hearts are broken because of our sin (unlike the judgmental
Pharisee) and when we taste the sweetness of Jesus’ forgiving love
preceding and awakening our love for him.
THE DEMAND THAT WE LOVE HIM IS AN ACT OF LOVE
There is no doubt that this love will produce the fruit of obedience
to Jesus’ other commandments (John 14:15), and that it will incline
us to fulfill the ministry he gives us to do (John 21:15-22), and that
it will produce a longing that Jesus be honored and blessed (John
14:28; 5:23). But beneath all this fruit is the fundamental reality of
heartfelt love for Jesus—strong feelings of admiration for his attributes,
abiding enjoyment of his fellowship, undying attraction to his
presence, warm affection for his kinship, and strong gratitude for
loving us before we loved him.
These emotions and this fruit are what Jesus meant when he
referred to our being “worthy” of him: “Whoever loves father or
mother more than me is not worthy of me’ (Matt. 10:37). Loving Jesus
with these affections and with this fruit makes us “worthy” of Jesus.
This does not mean that we deserve Jesus, as in the phrase “the laborer
is worthy of his wages” (Luke 10:7, literal translation). It means that
Jesus deserves this kind of love. Our worthiness means that he has
produced in us affections and behaviors that are suitable and fit for his
worth. They correspond properly to his value. (Compare the use of the
word “worthy” in the phrase, “Bear fruits worthy of [that is, suitable
to] repentance,” Luke 3:8, literal translation.)
Jesus demands that he be loved by the world because he is infinitely
worthy to be loved. And since our love for him is the enjoyment
of his glory and presence and care, therefore Jesus’ demand
that we love him is one more way that his love overflows on us.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. What does Jesus mean when He says "Love Me"?
2. Why does Jesus ask us to "Love Me" ?
3. How should we "Love Jesus"? What actions show that we "Love Jesus"?
4. in 2-3 sentences summarize your "take home" lesson.
