WHY do you love God and His Son?

Many, many, many millions of people probably would profess they love Jesus Christ (though I use the name his mama called him – Yeshua). You probably also profess you love your Savior, the Son of God. And I think that’s great.

My question is WHY would you say you love God and His son? But perhaps even a deeper question: what does your HEART say is the real reason you are building this relationship with your Master? Are you sure your motivation is what it should be?

I recently recorded a sermon titled “Will YOU be spared going through the coming Great Tribulation?” I hope you’ll all hear it.

Now what’s that got to do with loving God and his son?

It’s this: I point out in the sermon that some of God’s children in the very end time will be protected from going through the Great Tribulation. And I pointed out WHY they will be. Hear the sermon. But it includes points like God knows them and they know and love God. And God knows they’d never deny him, even at the point where they could lose their heads for proclaiming the Christ. Those he doesn’t know so well – they stand a much greater likelihood of having to go through the worst time of trouble the world will have ever seen!

So sometimes I’ve wondered if sometimes, some of us, want to know God and have God know us and love us – are you ready for it? – so we will be spared the Great Tribulation.

It’s fine to do what Christ said – to pray that we be counted worthy to escape all these things coming upon the earth (Luke 21:36) but I also think that we need to constantly be checking our hearts and our motivations.

We should love God – not just to protect our lives from what’s coming – but because we can’t help but love him for everything he has already done for us and the whole world.

Why do we love our God and Saviour? Let me list a few – and I’m sure many of you could list a bunch more. I welcome you to register on our website and plug in to the comments and share some reasons you love your Savior.

--- We love him because he saved us from eternal death and offered us eternal life instead. HOW did he save us from certain death? By offering to die FOR me, in my stead, and to die for you.

Sure, we know God the Father sent his one and only Son to die for us. But don’t forget Yeshua says HE also offered himself and had the right to go through with it – or not go through with it. Just read John 10:17-18, if you don’t believe me.

Folks, the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23), for forever, not eternal life in hell fire. And Yeshua offered up himself to come die for ME – and yes, for you too. But I like to personalize it like Apostle Paul does in Galatians 2:20 – “who died for ME…” Yes, sure, he died for the whole world that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16). But I love him because he saved me. He died for me.

--- I love Yeshua because when so many people give up on those they see as “really bad people” (at least in their eyes), there is still One who says, “Hang on, I died for that chap. I’m not done working with him yet. I died and came back to life so HE can have a future and a life.” I love Him because he has not given up on me, even when or if people I thought were friends or family might give up on me. In fact, Paul says he’s made us “sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph 4:6) AND that Christ will complete what he started in me (Philippians 1:6).

--- I love my Saviour for the same reason Apostle John said: “We love him because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). He loved me before I repented. He “died for the UNGODLY” (Romans 5:6 – and go ahead and read verses 7-11 too!) when there was not anything lovely about us spiritually. He loved me even after I sinned again after my baptism.  

It’s pretty impressive when Someone so perfect, so holy, so righteous wants to help out someone so bad, so dirty – as sinners. As me. As you. Paul was taken back by that too. “For scarcely for a righteous man will one die…” (Again Romans 5:6-11).

Ephesians 2:4-7 “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

--- I love my Savior because all true believers are “in him”. We are parts of HIS body. So by loving my Savior, I’m reminded to also be sure I love all of you. We CANNOT claim to love God and hate our brother or sister (1 John 4:20-21).

--- We PROVE our love for our great Savior and God by keeping his commandments (1 John 5:2-3; John 14:15, 21-24; John 15:10-14), especially his commandment to love one another as HE has loved us (John 13:34-35; 1 John 4:21; 1 John 3:22-24). We prove our love for him by feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked or poor, serving even the “least” of these his brethren (Matthew 25:34-40).

---I can’t help but love my Beloved Master Yeshua because our Father has offered HIS perfect life, HIS righteousness, as my own, credited or imputed to me! We often speak of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, of forgiveness, of eternal life, and of course even the gift of God’s Son. But how many ever speak of the gift of God’s own perfect righteousness in Christ that is offered to us? I’m giving yet another sermon on that important topic soon. See Romans 5:15-19, especially verse 17. Plus Philippians 3:9-11, 1 Cor. 1:29-30, 2 Cor. 5:20 if you have any doubt about what I’ve just said. So our Messiah’s own life is now ours. He’s offered his life for us and so I also offer him my allegiance, obedience and my love. If Christ is truly dwelling in me, the proof of that is a changing life – to one that looks more and more like His own life. It takes time, but God’s given me that wonderful gift of his own righteousness and I love him for it.

--- I love Jesus Christ, my Salvation, my Redeemer, because he is beyond description. He is my Rock, my Fortress, my HOPE, my LIFE. He is my LION of Judah guarding me. He is my Shepherd, shepherding me into God’s kingdom. He is my DOOR into that wonderful place. He is the Word of God, and so he is the Lamp – the Light – to my feet guiding my life into His perfect Way. He is my Bread of Life, on whom I feed daily. He is my living waters that he shares with me by His spirit. HE is my life now. I don’t want to see my life; I want to see HIS life being lived in me now. I love him because in spite of all my imperfections – that he knows even better than any human knows – HE STILL loves me. Still. He is my Everything.

So I just want to be sure that we love our Savior and our heavenly Father for all the right reasons. Don’t love God out of fear of the great tribulation or something like that. Don’t feel forced to love God out of fear of the consequences if you don’t. Love God and Yeshua for all the RIGHT reasons, and there are so many good reasons to love our God.

Perfect love, in fact, casts out morbid fear (1 John 4:18). And verse 17 says “Herein IS OUR LOVE MADE PERFECT, that we may have BOLDNESS in the Day of Judgment; because as HE is, so are we in this world.”

--- I love Him and want to love him more and more and more – because of who he is. He is my Savior, He is my big brother, He is my King to whom I bend my knees and bow my head daily, and he is my coming Husband whom I hope to be blessed to be able to marry as part of the Bride of Christ. Because of this love, I strive to make as much time as I possibly can every day to be spent with him. Sure, you and I still have other things to do. We still have to work, we still have to sleep and eat and bathe and all of that. But I’m finding that even AS I do those things, on the days when I have my foundation set right, I’m touching base dozens of times with my Beloved on those wonderful days.

Alas, I do still give in too often to my old nature and on those days I may falter in my love and fail him. But my Big Brother, My King comes looking for me, yes – even for me when I’m feeling down and lost for having failed to live to His standards. So he comes to find me, and to find you, and then he carries us upon his shoulders and brings us back home -- to sanity and to his love.

So you see, I love him for that too.

So – I don’t love Yeshua my Beloved out of fear of what’s coming. Because even then, should his will be that you or I suffer intensely for him and then have to give our life for him, then so be it. The Apostle Paul said he HOPED he could suffer more and more for Christ (Philippians 1:29). Paul wanted to know “the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death…” When Paul was first called, Ananias was told to tell him what Yeshua had said: “For I will show him how many things he must suffer for my name’s sake.” (Acts 9:16). After the 12 apostles were beaten with rods for preaching Christ – “they departed the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name” (Acts 5:40-41).

Yeshua tells us “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s own life for his friends” (John 15:13). It would also be an honor then, and great love, to lay down your life or my life, if called to do it, for our chief and best friend, Yeshua, if that becomes his will for any of us. Read how Peter felt about this – 1 Pet. 1:6-9.

So indeed, even as we pray – as we were told to do in Luke 21:36 – that we be counted worthy to escape ALL the horrible things that will hit this planet in the next decade or so, plus the Great Tribulation, let’s not make saving our own skin our focus. Let’s not love him because we’re afraid of the consequences if we don’t. We can love him for more superlative reasons than that.

We want to be zealous and close to God because he has called us to be close to Him. He loved us before we first loved him. He will do all in his power to be sure He finishes what He has started in us (Philippians 1:6). Malachi 3:16-18 makes it clear that those who love God deeply and love each other deeply are very special to God and he will protect many of those. Be sure to hear my sermon on “Will you Escape the Great Tribulation?” posted now, Feb 2019.  

I love him, I guess, because of SO many reasons. I just can’t help but love him and be in love with my Saviour, my Hero, my King and my Redeemer.