DAILY ENCOURAGEMENT MONDAY – A HEART STARTER #53. To Love Jesus.

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. - Matthew 22:37-38.
To love Jesus is to long to be with Him. To love Jesus is to think about Him. To love Jesus is to obey Him, to obey Him readily and implicitly, not feebly and reluctantly. The certainty of heaven is assured when we keep Jesus in the center of our hearts, in the center of our lives. He is to be the author of impulse and desire, of effort and action. "Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus." Will you get to heaven?

What is Jesus to you? Does He charm you? Does He draw you heavenward? Is it to be with Him that you seek heaven? Is He the fairest flower in all its garden? Is He the rarest and most precious of all its jewels? Is He sweeter than all its songs? Does He beget the longings for its blissful abodes? Does the desire to see and be with Him stir the profoundest ambition of your soul? Jesus and heaven are bound up together.

To love Him with an untold passionate devotion is heaven begun, heaven continued, and heaven ended. Paul says: "I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me that day: and not to me only, but unto all them that love his appearing."

The crown is not only personal to him, but universal, only limited "unto all them that love his appearing." Here it is not simply love for Jesus personally, but love for the great fact which is to culminate in the great glory of Jesus. To "love his appearing" there is the absolute necessity for loving His Person. The loving His coming is the test of loving His Person. We love the fact because we love the Person.

We are not charged to love any theory or opinion about the manner of His coming, or the time, but the fact. Let Him come when He will, how He will, and for what purpose He will. We love his coming because we love Him. "Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus," and bring Thy heaven with Thee. – E.M. Bounds.

My God, I love Thee; not because
I hope for heaven thereby,
Nor yet because who love Thee not
Are lost eternally.

Thou, O my Jesus, Thou didst me
Upon the cross embrace;
For me didst bear the nails, and spear,
And manifold disgrace,
And griefs and torments numberless,
And sweat of agony;
Yea, death itself; and all for me
Who was thine enemy.

Then why, O blessed Jesus Christ,
Should I not love Thee well?
Not for the sake of winning heaven,
Nor of escaping hell;
Not from the hope of gaining aught,
Not seeking a reward;
But as Thyself hast loved me,
O ever-loving Lord.

So would I love Thee, dearest Lord,
And in Thy praise will sing;
Solely because Thou art my God,
And my most loving King.
- Francis Xavier, 1506-1552.

Wow! Now that our hearts are beating regularly, let’s consider what we have just read over a cup of Java, and ask the Lord to help us by the power of the Holy Spirit, to love the Lord Jesus, with all of our heart, soul and mind, and to long for His coming again.

Loving Father, I thank you for the beautiful weekend that I have just had. Help me by the power of the Holy Spirit to start off this week, by taking on board, some of the advice and inspirations that I have just read. In the wonderful and mighty name of Jesus, I pray. Amen.

Be encouraged!
GBYAY