On Loving Christ

ON LOVING CHRIST

Do you love Jesus Christ? I mean for who Christ is, rather than for what Christ can do for you? Here is dialogue between Christ and me about this issue:
The Lord said to me,
“Do you love Me for my power or my Person,
For what I can do for you,
Or for who I am to you?”

The tenderest of questions,
The opened heart of the One asking,
Waiting to hear from the heart of the addressed,
Requiring the most honest of answers –
With my future possibly at stake in my reply.

A test I did not seek found me;
A question I did not want to be put before me,
Had nevertheless been tossed like a gauntlet at my feet.

So I said to the Lord,
“I am in awe of Your power,
But I am in love with Your Person;
I dare not fall in love with power,
Along with its corrupting excesses.
Show apart from substance does not impress,
And Your substance is love itself.

“I ask for Your power to protect loved ones,
To heal and comfort those in need,
But I do not love Your power, even
When it has shown its holy, humble Face.
I love the Doer rather than the deed,
The Worker rather than the worked.

“I do not daily meditate on You for Your power,
But for the nearness of Your Person.
I want to remain in heart union with You without end.
Does this answer Your question, Beloved?”

And the Lord said to me:
“I hide evidence of My power here;
I want those who pursue Me to do so
With the desire for Me rather than my benefits.
Those who search for Me with their whole hearts,
I let find Me.
Have I not let you find Me? That is your answer.”
How we feel toward Christ matters more than what we do for Christ. Remember what the resurrected Jesus asked the Apostle Peter three successive times – after Peter had earlier denied knowing Him three times: “Do you love me?” And after each time Peter said “yes”, the Lord commanded him to “Tend (or feed) my sheep” (John 21:15-17). Love comes before mission, so that mission is always founded and built on love.
God looks to the heart above all. And you can always ask for more love from and for God. All you need is a desire to love God for God. Ask God to increase your love for Jesus Christ as well as your awareness of that love. Breathe in Christ’s love for you, and breathe out your love for Christ. Remember that “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Seek simply to return God’s love made sweeter by your own love in response.
Ask for more love, coming to you, and arising from you. That is the same thing as asking God for more of God.