Loving Jesus

In the upper room, in that special time Jesus had with His disciples just a few hours before He went to the cross, our Lord spoke many profound words. In one particular statement, He lays out a sequence for accessing and experiencing Jesus.

“He that hath [who is having] my commandments, and keepeth [is keeping] them, he it is that loveth [who is loving] me: and he that loveth [who is loving] me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.” John 14:21

With “he it is who is loving Me” as a starting point, the verse describes a domino effect of truth that indicates loving precedes having and keeping and ultimately brings one into a greater experience of Jesus. The order follows both explicit and implicit truth.

To love Jesus is to choose Jesus.
To choose Jesus is to choose His words.
To choose His words is to depend on His words.
To depend on His words is to be enabled by Him through His Spirit.
To be enabled by His Spirit is to obey His words.
To so love Jesus is to be loved by the Father and the Son.
To be loved by God is to experience Him.

Love sets its affection on the object of its affection. This is the starting point—relationship. Choose Jesus! But how? Choose His words. In so doing you are depending on His words. This dependence on Jesus accesses Jesus. Jesus then enables by His Spirit, and this supernatural enabling empowers obedience. Understanding this helps us to grasp Jesus’ follow-up statement, “If a man love me, he will keep my words” (John 14:23a).

The reality of loving Jesus accesses more divine love as Jesus further manifests Himself, and in this manifestation, you experience Jesus. This is reemphasized as Jesus expands on His follow-up statement with a follow-up promise, “and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him” (John 14:23b). The word abode (translated in the plural as mansions in John 14:2) literally means abiding-place. When you love Jesus, He promises He will make you His abiding place. This is experiencing Jesus deeply. No wonder the greatest commandment is to love God!

The key to spiritual progress is simply loving Jesus. This relational starting point ignites faith that accesses grace for the deepening of spiritual life. Loving Jesus leads to experiencing Jesus.