“JESUS LOVES ME; THIS I KNOW, FOR THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO!“
There we were, fifty middle-aged men, the beloved teacher Dwight Keith conducting us. Not one man seemed to feel embarrassed or ashamed to belt out to the best of his ability, this children’s song we learned in
Sunday School all those years ago.
Remember those sweet days of our youth. Jesus wants us to revert spiritually to our childlike faith and love for Him:
“I assure you and most solemnly say to you, unless you repent [that is, change your inner self—your old way of thinking, live changed lives] and become like children [trusting, humble, and forgiving], you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
(Matthew 18:3)
“JESUS, LOVE ME THIS I KNOW, FOR THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO!!”
How have we forgotten the profound truth of those beautiful words? As we grew into adults, we were incorrectly taught that there are qualifiers to those beautiful words, like “if, and but.” And they began to fade from our memories. Our adult minds say to us, “It can’t be that simple.” But it is. The scriptures and the teachings of Jesus tell us that it is but our flesh and the evil one want us to believe we have to earn that love.
My lungs stopped working. My eyes rolled back in my head. I was dead, and I knew it. Double Covid pneumonia had done the job it was created to do.
I saw myself in the sea of Galilee going down for the last time. Then I heard the voice of my King and saw His hand reaching out to me.
The scene is hard to describe but to my left side was a bright light. To my right side was Jesus’s hand. In a timeless moment, Jesus spoke to me.
His Words were soft, kind, loving, and unforgettable.
“Son, you have three choices to make. You can return to life and be the same person you have always been (with the same fears and unbelief and doubts), or you can come with me and receive your rewards and live in my love for all of eternity right now, and that would be My reward. Or, you can return to life and allow me to make you into the person you have always wanted to be.
If you choose the third option, we will teach more people than you could ever imagine possible, and I will change the message you teach. I want you to teach one thing and one thing only for as long as you are on the earth,
I want you to teach my children how much I love them as individuals regardless of their performance.”
If you want to live and accept the third option, grab my hand and hold on to it as tightly as possible, and never let go; don’t be like Peter and look away.”
As soon as I grabbed his hand and held on as tight as I could, I heard a doctor shouting at me and shining a flashlight in my eyes, and telling me that I was dying and that she needed to put me on a ventilator because I only had minutes to live.
That was more than a year ago, and I am here keeping the promise I made to my King.
Jesus wants us to believe without a doubt that He loves us infinitely and personally without regard for our behavior. Jesus cherishes everything that lives because He created and maintains everything that lives. He does not cherish sin. But He cherishes sinners and prays that they will accept Him and be saved.
Imagine the perfect, holy, sinless God in the flesh loving you so much that he died the most horrible, painful death any being ever has to make you holy, blameless, and beyond correction in His sight and because you are His glorious inheritance.
“For it pleased the Father for all the fullness of deity—the sum total of His essence, all His perfection, powers, and attributes to dwell permanently in Him (Jesus) and through Jesus to reconcile all things to Himself, making peace with believers through the blood of His cross; through Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven.
And although you were at one time estranged and alienated and hostile-minded toward Him, participating in evil things, Jesus has now reconciled you to God in His physical body through death, to present you before the Father holy and blameless and beyond reproach.“
(Colossians 1:21-22)
What do we need to do to receive everything He did for us? First, believe in Him and Believe Him. That is it, Period.
(John 6:28-29)
Then they asked Him, “What are we to do, so that we may habitually be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered, “This is the work of God: that you believe in the One whom He has sent. (John 6:28-29)
Jesus’s love for us as individuals is as infinite as He is.
All that Jesus wants from us in exchange for all that He has done for us and given to us is for us to believe and believe in Him. Through the inspiration of Holy Spirit, Paul called this “only our reasonable service.”
Shouldn’t the infinite love of Jesus compel us to live not according to the desires of our flesh but to the direction of the Holy Spirit and according to the commands of the One who loves us so much? Shouldn’t His love make us hunger and thirst after righteousness to please Him not in fear of punishment if we don’t but in our deep gratitude to the One who first loved us?
“For the love of Christ controls and compels us, because we have concluded this, that One died for all; therefore all died; and He died for all, so that all those who live would no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and was raised for their sake.”
(2Corinthians5:13-14)
Do you have a plan for how you can express your gratitude to the King of Love? Will you make a choice, a decision to believe that His love for you (fill in your name) is infinite and unqualified?
