What of Jesus loveth thee?

Tonight I was pawing through my old 23rd printing, 1962 Halley's Bible Handbook, it is a treasure I love and refer to almost more than any commentary. It is tattered and worn, whoever owned it before I did loved it to near pieces, and I have not loved it much less. Once again, tonight I was plunged into deep thought and prayer by Henry Halley's simplicity of insight. I was reading as he just made his casual observations about the book of Colossians, and he challenged me deeply on his analysis of Chapter two.

He says thus as follows:

"Who are legalists? They are those who rest their salvation on themselves rather than on Christ. Of course we want to believe all the doctrines correctly, and to our utmost obey all the commandments. But, if, in our thinking, we put too much stress on what we believe or what we do, are we not perilously near to resting our salvation on ourselves? Christ, not a doctrine, not a commandment, is our Saviour. He, not ourselves, is the basis of our hope. We must not minimize the necessity of believing right doctrines. But after all, being a Christian is, essentially, loving Christ, a Person, rather than believing this or that doctrine, or obeying this or that commandment. We believe doctrines or obey commandments as unto Christ. We must not love them more than we love Him. If we love a doctrine overmuch we are apt to grow cross and hard and sour toward those who do not agree with our doctrine. If we love a Person, Christ a Person, we grow like Him. Paul, in this Epistle, was aiming to correct the false doctrines of the Judaizers on the one hand and the Greek philosophers on the other, and resultant compromise doctrines. But even if our beliefs are Scripturally sound, there is such a thing as exalting some truth about Christ above Christ Himself. And when we thus top the balance of our partnership with Christ to our own side we are Legalists. It is possible to be a legalist over a doctrine of grace."

As a result I was shocked when I thought about how often I talk about Christ, and about scripture, but was baffled at how little I express my reasons for actually loving Jesus. What struck me is that it is all to easy for me to beat around the burning bush if you know what I mean. So I thought I would start a thread, and I hope many would be interested, where we just express why we love Jesus, and what about Him we love.

My practice was to just sit and pray and think about the things that come to mind that I love about him. If possible just make your list or statements from the heart, and not a proof-text list. Think of the things he did, or said that most impact you on a personal level. For it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.

Things I love about Jesus. (this list is by no means exhaustive, but what came to mind first.)

1.)He chose simple, unlearned men of low estate and little clout to be his disciples. I am just like those men, hardly worthy of a second glance, I was told by someone, who never should have said what they said, that when I got older all I would be is fat, bald, ugly and worthless. He was probably right about the first three things, but Jesus showed me that I am not worthless; He gave everything to express his love towards me while I was at my worst, His life gives my life value. I have always been uncomfortable around people of reputation, I admit that they can easily intimidate me, but Jesus never does. With a moments notice I can turn to him and he hears my frustrations. The strange thing is that He has a reputation above and beyond any man, yet He is more approachable than any of them are.

2.)I love Jesus because he looked for honesty in people. He was not impressed by religious talk, and vain babbling questions, but queried those who would receive something from Him, for an honest answer to his probing insights. I wonder if I had been those people if I would have been honest with him, or if I would have been one who tried to say something to impress him…It has taken me years to learn how to be honest with God.

3.)I love Jesus because he condescended to an utterly broken mans deepest need. Peter had turned his back on His Lord after three years of serving Him, listening to Him, declaring him as the Messiah, casting out demons in His name. Peter’s honesty to Jesus was enough for Jesus to commission him to the service of the King as a shepherd. This broken, simple man was honored with preaching the first gospel sermon as a demonstration of the Power of the Holy Spirit.

4.)I love Jesus because he destroyed the systematic theology of the Sadducees with one simple question.

5.)I love Jesus subtlety (God hides himself in thick darkness, Exodus 20:21) as he approached the disciples on the road to Emmaus, and was content to not be recognized by them, and content to probe them and ask them questions until their curiosity about his ‘feigned’ ignorance overwhelmed them and they were privileged to share in some of the richest fellowship with Jesus.

6.)I am at once disturbed, and yet greatly love the fact that Jesus was content to leave the rich young ruler discombobulated. I love that Jesus did not shy away from telling him the most pungent piercing truth without softening it or watering it down. I find that many followers of Jesus think that they are greater than their master in this fashion.

7.)I love the fact that Jesus could never be backed into a corner by any of his detractors. He had an utter confidence in His Father, and a confidence in His mission that demanded attention. He was always able to resolve seemingly impossible biblical tensions, aka the woman caught in adultery.

8.)I love this probably more than any other thing…Jesus snuck away from the crowds and the disciples to spend time with His Father. Of all His examples, this is the most meaningful to me.

9.)I love the fact that Jesus was a carpenter, a working man; he bled building things like most men do. He can relate to the frustrations of work and yet he never sinned. This offers me great hope that he can help me to not sin with my attitude as I work as well.

10.)I love the fact that He is utterly unclassifiable. He has no Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, or Species to compare to…yet He does have a Kingdom unlike any other. Jesus has no match. I have had to declassify Him and accept Hebrews 1:3a with an utterness of faith.

11.)I love that Jesus could speak with all the gravity of a million galaxies, and in the blink of an eye with more compassion and meekness than any before or after Him.

12.)I love that Jesus drove the money changers out of the temple. I probably would have been just as shocked as anyone when it happened, and more than uncomfortable to behold it, as I always feel awkward when I witness a parent administering discipline to their child. I am not sure why I do, I just always have. Yet because of this, my Lord took a stand against religious men profiting off of their religion. He called them to task over what God’s house was meant for, and abhorred the sham they had made it. The fact that no one measurably resisted him when he did it speaks multitudes to me.

13.)I love all of Jesus words and doctrine, and I love how he balanced his doctrine with His actions. You do not see Jesus proclaiming His truths from an ivory tower, nor do you see him being humanistic in His compassion.

14.)I love that He relied on His Father for everything he did. This gives me great hope that I can rely on Him for my service as well.

15.)Finally (at least for this list for now) I love Jesus because he not only finished the work of the cross, buried sin with him in the grave, but glory of glories, praise of all praises, truth beyond truth HE ROSE FROM THE GRAVE!!! Which gives me the power to not just be sentimental about these things Jesus did, but empowers me to emulate them.

16.) One more I forgot to mention that had come to mind. This one I am more in awe of, but all the time I begin to understand this more, and respect it more, and in time I reckon I will love Him the more for it, but when He stood silent before His accusers...I am floored. Above any who ever lived, he alone had not only the right, but the seeming impetus to defend himself, yet silent he went, into the long dark night...His resurrection would speak louder than any words of defense ever could.

I realize that the deepest feelings of love I have ever felt for Him all followed correction. Some corrections took place over a period of time, some happened quickly, some were gentle, some like a shock to the system, but always leaving me in awe that He should care enough to actually intervene.
One time, shortly after my conversion, He took me back in time to see how He had been there for me during the time I was most rebellious. I saw the many ways He had been protecting me and then I had a vision of a road leading to destruction and I wanted to walk on it but I couldn't because something was in my way. I saw my friends passing me to the left and right and I cursed and kicked while literally ramming my head into this obstacle in front of me, but to no avail. Then I looked up and in a flash realized that it was the Lord Jesus who stood in my way and though I can not describe His face, I saw tears on it because I caused Him pain, but He wouldn't budge. To this day this memory makes me completely fall apart.
I love Him for many other reasons, but mostly for His grace and mercy to place His affection on me. I have always looked back at what he showed me that day and asked, "Why me, Lord?"

Thank you for sharing SolaVeritas. That is a powerful illustration. Do you think that there is a narrative in the gospels anywhere that you see this characteristic of Christ? Any thing he did or said that would indicate how your vision relates to how he revealed himself to us in the word? I can think of a few things, but would not want to rob you of the joy of confessing it.

Do you think that there is a narrative in the gospels anywhere that you see this characteristic of Christ?

When I read that testimony it reminded my Balaam and his donkey.

Thank you, you have challenged me with your question. I see many incidents in the Bible where the Lord revealed Himself or an insight into a situation through visions. In that way it is certainly biblical, even though it is personal and therefore carries much less weight than what has been included in the Word of God for the edification of all believers.
I also see it as consistent with what is revealed in the Gospels about the character of Christ. I see Him shedding tears over Jerusalem's resistance to the peace He wants to give to them in Luke 19, or how He picks out disciples as he sees best, while others are bypassed.
Please tell me what has come to your mind, but let me not distract too much from your original post.

Sola, that is a great passage, Jesus weeping over those whom resisted Him is a terrifying and very real problem for many throughout the ages, but nowhere more in your face than the passage you mentioned.

I was personally thinking about a similar passage where Jesus said, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings and ye would not. Behold, your house is left unto you desolate: and verily I say unto you, Ye shall not see me, until the time come when ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." -Luke 13:35-35

The only reason I asked the question was hopefully to maintain the continuity of the way I framed the thread, however secondarily, whenever someone says that they have had a vision from the Lord, I always test the Spirit of the vision by comparing the Christ of the vision to what is revealed in scripture. Jesus would never contradict His revelation of Himself as he manifested toward us in the word. I think a lot of people would have saved themselves a lot of wasted life by adopting this practice as John told us too. Again I appreciated what you shared because it lines up with the word of God.

I love Jesus because He is more merciful than I am, because the first post in this thread is certainly me. I look forward to the day when I see how truly much He has done for me when I was here on Earth. I only wish I could thank Him more for it than I do now.

He is the prophet, priest and king who lives to make intercession. He is always pleading to the Father on behalf of us.

We love Him because He first loved us, and He loves us supremely more than we love Him. I cannot take my scope of love and imagine that this is the scope with which He loves us, but it is far greater than I can conceive.

"We love Him because He first loved us."

When I asked my wife this same question I posed in this thread, this was the same response she gave me. When I asked her though what about Christ she loved because she now loved him, it took her a moment to respond, but once she thought about it she said one of her favorite things about Christ was how he spoke to the woman at the well. Because Jesus did not treat women like other men did.

Now that you love him because he loves you Anastasis, what about Him loveth thee? If Jesus is the full manifestation of the Godhead Bodily, and we are His brothers and sisters, now made sons and daughters of God, we really ought to begin to love things about him. This is the restoration of fellowship lost in Eden...

We have tasted the fruit of the tree of life, is it not the sweetest and most nourishing fruit ever tasted?

I understand what you are saying now. In that case, I have two things:

"A bruised reed He will not break." Christ came speaking with great power and authority that no one else spoke with, but His association was always with the broken and repentant, those who saw their own dreadfulness, and He always makes Himself lovely to them. He never went to harm one who was already bruised and crushed by their sinful burdens. In contrast with the legalism of His day, and full crushing weight of a just and merciless law, He offered a command that was easy, with a burden that was light, by giving His Spirit to those who know that they have no strength. Every time He has bidden us carry a burden, He has always taken the heavy end. When people tend to associate with those with status, He chooses to be with the have-nots, giving no thought to His own ranking.

Also, His perfect obedience to the Father in every situation. From the first waking moment to the long last hour on the cross, He was only concerned with the Father: Doing the Father's will, exalting the Father, making His name known. Never once did Christ exalt Himself. Never once did He demand the priesthood He knew would soon be His, like the prodigal son. Never once did He cite His exhaustive works on Earth as a case for God to elevate Him then and there, and would not back down from the cross even though every angel in heaven would have come at His command. Instead, He learned patience by suffering, and only took His office as Prophet, Priest and King when it was given to Him.

And yes, there is no taste like that of the heavenly gift :) We shall taste much more than what we have been given already.