Time and time again I have ended what I written with the words, Jesus, I love You. And I do and that without reservations and no regrets. I count it a high honor just for him to allow this poor Gentile believer to serve him in any capacity whatsoever.
Having said that, I do not serve him because I love Him. I serve him because he loves me. My love for him is only a drop, in the vast ocean of his love for me. My love is just too limited to ever serve him to any degree. All the while, His love for me is unlimited and will never fail. My love for him will wain and fail way too often to be trusted to any degree to serve him who is altogether lovely. I take my place at the foot of the cross realizing my need as a Mary, pleading for help and strength to serve as a Martha.
All the while, his love for me, day in and day out, through the night season, continues to hold steadfast, through every storm, every heartache, through every trial I have ever faced or will ever face.
When I tell him I love him, it is only a small token I give back until I see his Face as he sits on his throne at his Father’s side with all the Holy Angels, the which these eyes also shall behold. With all the redeemed of all the ages. And, oh, the glorious thought of the faces of all the little aborted babies, beholding the Face of their Father, who beholds those, the unwanted love of their little hearts, this old world rejected, but loved of their Heavenly Father.
Yes, I do love him, but I serve him because he loves me. Jesus loves me this I know, because The Old Rugged Cross, tells me so, and that, for now and all eternity. His love for me never changes nor will it ever cease, whether I love him or not.
My failures have never diminished ought of his love for me. All the times I have broken his heart, his love for me standeth sure.
“Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” I John 4:10
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” Jeremiah 17:9
“And there came a messenger unto Job, and said, The oxen were plowing, and the asses feeding beside them: And the Sabeans fell upon them, and took them away; yea, they have slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee. While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The fire of God is fallen from heaven, and hath burned up the sheep, and the servants, and consumed them; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee. While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The Chaldeans made out three bands, and fell upon the camels, and have carried them away, yea, and slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee. While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, Thy sons and thy daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house: And, behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men, and they are dead; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.” Job 1:14-19
These scripture passages above, show us the reason we must have the foundation of knowing Jesus loves us. Will our feeble and deceitful hearts carry us through trials such as Job went through. Can we say as Job, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him.” Job 13:15
Our foundation must go beyond anything within our own strength. And that, because we know beyond any shadow of doubt, his love for us is the foundation that standeth sure and never changes through any trial that comes our way.
Do I love him? Yes, with every fiber in my heart, but can I trust my heart and love for him? No. My heart in not my foundation. It is his love that carries me. King David was a man after God’s own heart, yet David’s love when put to the test in temptation, failed him, and so will ours.
Children, let us wrap our heart’s around the reality, Jesus really loves us and his love will never fail us.
No, I cannot trust my love for him in order to serve him, but I can trust his love for me. On that distant day in the past when I saw those wounds and stripes that healed me, through the eyes of this repentant heart.
There will come the day, I shall see those wounds and stripes through the eyes of my new glorified body and behold him as my heart so desires even as I pen these words on the screen. Jesus, I do love Thee, but nothing compared to Thy love for me. Jesus loves me this I know and He will always love me so.
Job understood this. “For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me.”” Job 19:25-27
Children, let there never be the day we forget He loves us with an everlasting love.
“Now before the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.” John 13:1