How to love Jesus
I am going to assume that if you’re listening to this podcast there is some degree of love and appreciation for Jesus. And if you’re just beginning to think about whether or not you want to follow Jesus, you may be wondering about how to love Jesus and why that might be important.
But before we talk about the “how to love Jesus,” question, let’s talk about the “why.” Why do you love Jesus? Why should you love Jesus? And I don’t mean “should” in the sense of “you have to” or “you’re supposed to.” It’s more about what impels you to love him by choice, not out of duty.
Well, why do you love anyone? It’s usually because they’ve expressed love to you, or done something to help or protect you. When I feel like someone really understands me, or at least has a desire to, love and appreciation swell up in my heart for that person.
And by the way, I’m not just talking about casual friendship or romantic love, but a deeper spiritual love, what the Bible calls agape. Why do you love someone? There are all sorts of reasons.
Why do you love Jesus?
So let’s ask the question: Why do you love Jesus? Ponder that for a moment I’ll share a few of the reasons I love Jesus.
These are in no particular order. I love Jesus for what he did to help the people who came to him. He was so unselfish and compassionate. I love Jesus because of the ideas he taught, which have been recorded in the Bible and are available to you and me today.
I love Jesus because he wasn’t afraid of opposition and spoke the truth of God to men who thought they had power.
I love Jesus because of the way he lived his life as an example for us to follow. And he knew we could follow him. And above all, I love Jesus because he went through the ordeal of the cross and then was victorious over death in his resurrection, in effect giving us victory over sin and death with him.
Jesus expressed a lot of love for us in all these things he did, and in return, I love him.
And I am so grateful for all the ways Jesus has blessed, not just me personally, but the whole world.
I could make a very long list of reasons why I love Jesus. I’ve just shared a few of them. I hope you will make your own list of reasons why you love Jesus.
Showing your love for Jesus
How do you show your love for Jesus?
There are so many ways to answer that question too.
But imagine for just a minute that you’re living back in the time of Jesus. You’ve heard him preach. You were one of those 5,000 people he fed out in the wilderness and he healed your mother of a very serious disability. Every time you saw him or heard him talk, you were filled with a powerful sense of love and peace and the conviction that all things are possible to God.
Your heart is overflowing with love and gratitude for Jesus and everything he’s done. How would you express your love and gratitude for him, to him? There are so many possibilities.
I would want to tell him in person. I would want to hear him every time he spoke. I would want to follow him to learn more from him. I would tell others about him. And hopefully, it would occur to me to do the things he said to do, to put his teachings into practice in my own life.
How to love Jesus today
Well, let’s come back to the 21st century. The question of how to love Jesus is just as important today as it was 2,000 years ago. Jesus is not physically here on earth the way he was back then, so you’re not going to be able to walk up to him personally and say you love him to his face.
You can’t go hear him preach the way you could have 2,000 years ago, but you can read his words in the Bible and hear his message loud and clear. You can study his words, ponder them, and let them be the guiding light in your life.
And you can definitely tell others about Jesus, just as you could have back then.
Most importantly though, you can put into practice what Jesus taught, by doing everything he said to do. This is really the best way to show your love for him. In fact, Jesus said the same thing,
If you love me, you will keep my commandments. John 14:15 ESV
And here again, it’s not out of duty or obligation, but just because you can’t help yourself. When you love Jesus, when you truly love Jesus, obeying his commandments will just occur naturally.
How to love Jesus through obedience
But what is obedience?
Jesus tells a quick little parable to put a focus on it.
“There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’ ‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went. Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go. Which of the two did what his father wanted?”
“The first,” they answered.
Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.” Matthew 21:28-32 NIV
The point of this parable was to show how the religious leaders who believed themselves to be and claimed they were obedient to God really weren’t because they didn’t repent and believe Jesus’s message. But the ones who had sinned, repented and did accept Christ.
Jesus makes it clear that obedience, like love, cannot just be words of hollow affirmation. Action is always the true indicator of love and obedience. 1 John puts it this way:
Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. 1 John 3:18 NIV
How to love Jesus and obey him all the time
Now you may be thinking: Hey James, I hear what you’re saying about doing what Jesus told us to do and keeping all his commandments because we love him. But there are so many things Jesus told us to do. He gave us so many commandments. It’s hard to remember all of them all the time. There are probably some things he said, I may not even know about.
You are certainly right. Jesus constantly gave instructions on how to live, what to say, what to do, what not to say or do. The only way to remember them all is to study everything he said.
That means reading the four Gospels, not just in bits and pieces, but the whole thing, straight through all four books: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And if you need to make a list of everything Jesus said to do, then do it. Make that list, even the things you’re already doing.
Make a Jesus to-do list
You are probably are already doing many of the things Jesus told us to do. There’s no way to list them all in this podcast episode, but here are some of the ones that come to mind right now.
Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.Matthew 6:33 NLT
But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! Matthew 5:44 NLT
Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. Matthew 7:3-5 NIV
Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly. John 7:24 NIV
My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. John 15:12 NIV
Now, three of those sayings of Jesus come from the Sermon on the Mount. And if you really want to know what Jesus is telling you to do, read through the Sermon on the Mount, Chapters 5, 6, and 7 of Matthew. Make list of everything he says to do. That will give you a good place to get started.
And of course, there are so many more.
How to love Jesus more
As I said, you are probably already doing many of these things. But no matter how much you already love Jesus, the real question is how to love Jesus more than you have in the past.
The simple answer is to obey one of Jesus’s commandments that you haven’t been obeying. If there is someone you haven’t forgiven completely, then you have not yet completely obeyed Jesus’s commandment to forgive 70 x 7.
If you’re still struggling to forgive someone, think about how your love for Jesus can help you do that. Forgiving someone isn’t something you can do on your own. The human heart cannot reach the full measure of forgiveness without the presence of Christ in your life.
When, through Christ’s help, you finally forgive that person who has been hard to forgive, you will feel closer to Christ because you have become more like Christ and you’ll have more love for Christ.
This will be the case in any situation when you obey one of Jesus’s commands which you haven’t been able to in the past.
Love is not just the words you say
When you love someone, it’s not just about the words you say, it’s about how you act. This is especially true in your love for Jesus.
As I mentioned earlier, Jesus isn’t here in person the way he was 2,000 years ago. So how is it possible show your love to Jesus if he’s not here?
Fortunately, Jesus gave us a simple answer, something we can all do. In the parable of the separating the sheep from the goats, the people who obeyed Jesus and those who didn’t, he gives us the perfect answer. The question “How to love Jesus” becomes “How to love all mankind.”
“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’” Matthew 25:34-40 NIV
Every time you love someone else the way you would love Jesus, you are loving Jesus. The more you love others in this way, the more you are loving Jesus as well.
Some folks today need to learn how to love Jesus
As for the goats in this parable, who ended up on the left side, they thought they loved Jesus. They called him “Lord” but they did not treat others the same way they would treat him. They didn’t live their love for Jesus in the way they interacted with others.
This is an ongoing problem today. Too many people who claim to love and follow Jesus are not loving people the way Jesus tells us to. They are not obeying Jesus’s commands. And Jesus has some pretty strong words for this kind of mental attitude. He says to anyone who claims to be his follower but is not actually following him:
“Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? As for everyone who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice, I will show you what they are like. They are like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete.” Luke 6:46-49 NIV
Obviously, you want to build your house on a strong foundation and that means obeying what Jesus tells us to do.
Is your love for Jesus transactional?
Let’s come back to why we should love and obey Jesus.
I love the story of the young rich man who comes to Jesus and asks
As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.’”
“Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”
Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth. Matthew 10:17-22 NIV
Just recently I realized this rich man had a very transactional approach to inheriting eternal life, to use his words. He wanted to know what he had to do to get a certain result. He thought heaven was something he didn’t have but must attain through obeying certain commandments.
Finding the kingdom of heaven
Earlier Jesus had said,
… the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Matthew 4:17 KJV
And later he would say,
… the kingdom of God is within you. Luke 17:21 KJV
Why didn’t Jesus tell this fellow that heaven is already here and that God’s kingdom is already within him, that spiritually he already possessed the kingdom and life eternal? My guess is that the man wasn’t ready for this powerful truth and Jesus met him where he was.
Now you may be wondering: Hey James, what does this have to do why I love Jesus? Well, here’s my point. If you are loving Jesus to get something from it, like the man was wanting to obey all the commandments so he could get eternal life, your reason for loving is more like a transaction instead of receiving a gift.
What if the young man had had a deep desire to obey the commandments simply to be closer to God, to know God better, and be more conscious of God’s love? That’s very different from wanting something, trying to get something, out of the process.
How to love Jesus more than ever
Why do you love Jesus? Why should you love Jesus? It’s not to get something for yourself, to win spiritual brownie points. The reason to love Jesus is simply because he is the epitome of what love is. He represented, and still represents, God’s infinite love for all mankind. It’s the reason he came to Earth in the first place, to show us how much God loves us.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16 NIV
So let’s come back one more time to this idea of how to love Jesus more than you ever have before. The more you love Jesus by obeying his commands, his teachings, and following in his footsteps, the closer you will feel to Jesus, the more you will understand him, and the more you will be like him.
And then, it’s about loving everyone you meet with all that love you have for Jesus.
Take one step at a time
I know, it seems almost too much to ask. How to love everybody that way, how to follow and do everything Jesus told you to do all at once. So start with baby steps on the path. Pick one thing Jesus says to do that you are not doing. It could be forgiving someone, blessing your enemies, walking the literal or figurative extra mile with someone. Whatever it is, take that one thing and focus on doing what Jesus has asked you to do.
If it seems impossible to love everyone you meet the way you would love Jesus, then start with just one person. Love them the way you would love Jesus. Treat them, speak to them, respect them the way you would Jesus.
Once you have taken those new steps in loving Jesus, take one more. Look at your list of everything Jesus said to do and focus on another one, then another. Once you have been able to love someone like you would love Jesus, choose someone else to love that way. Keep adding to your list of people to love in this way.
At some point you will no longer wonder how to love Jesus more, because you’ll be doing it and others will learn how to love Jesus by your example.
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James Early, the Jesus Mindset Coach, is a Bible teacher, speaker, and church mentor. He conducts Bible workshops online and in person. His focus is on getting back to the original Christianity of Jesus by learning to think, pray, and love like Jesus. Contact him here.
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Bible References
John 14:15 ESV
15 If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
Matthew 21:28-32 NIV
28 “There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’
29 “‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.
30 “Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go.
31 “Which of the two did what his father wanted?” “The first,” they answered. Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.
32 For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.”
1 John 3:18 NIV
18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
Matthew 6:33 NLT
33 Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.
Matthew 5:44 NLT
44 But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!
Matthew 7:3-5 NIV
3 Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?
4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?
5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
John 7:24 NIV
24 Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.
John 15:12 NIV
12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.
Matthew 25:34-40 NIV
34 Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.
35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,
36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?
38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?
39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
Luke 6:46-49 NIV
46 “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?
47 As for everyone who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice, I will show you what they are like.
48 They are like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built.
49 But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete.”
Matthew 10:17-22 NIV
17 As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
18 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone.
19 You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.’”
20 “Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”
21 Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
22 At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.
Matthew 4:17 KJV
17… the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Luke 17:21 KJV
21 … the kingdom of God is within you.
John 3:16 NIV
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
