9 Reasons Why Should We Love God(Christ) By Thomas Vincent
Why Should We Love God(Christ)?
#1 Your Duty To Love Christ
It is much more important to have spiritual affections for Christ than it is to have a natural love for your parents and children. It is a greater duty to have marital love for your heavenly Husband than it is to have marital affection for your earthly husband and wife. It is a greater duty to love Jesus Christ, who loves you above all relatives than it is to love your brethren, sisters, and family who love you. It is your duty to love Christ, your best friend.
It is your heavenly Father’s will for you to love Christ. The devil wants you to hate Him, but God wants you to love Him, and you decide whether it is more rational to obey God’s will or the devil’s will. It is the will of Christ that you should love Him. The flesh’s will is opposed to this love, but whose will should you obey? You are not debtors to the flesh in the sense that you should obey its commands, nor are you debtors to any creature in the sense that you should offer them your most cherished affections—but you are debtors to Christ in the sense that you should give Him your first love. Will you not give Christ His due? Christ has the most right to your love. Are you not even more obligated to give Christ His due if you are obligated to give men their due? Christ deserves your finest, and what better gift can you give Him than your hearts? Will Christ take anything you give Him if you don’t give Him your hearts? If you had thousands of rams and ten thousand rivers of oil to present Him; if you had all the treasures of the earth at your disposal, and you laid it all down at His feet, it would all be slighted and disregarded by Him if you gave away your hearts.
#2 Your Privilege To Love Christ
Consider it a PRIVILEGE to love Christ, knowing that he will give you permission to do so and graciously accept your love. If beggars fall in love with princes in order to marry, both their people and their love would be scorned, angered, and despised. Despite the fact that the distance between you and Jesus Christ is greater than the distance between the highest prince and the lowest beggar, the Lord Jesus Christ gives you permission to love Him with a spiritually marital love in order to achieve the closest spiritual union and conjunction; and, despite His greatness and your lowliness, He is not ashamed to entertain your love. Despite the fact that you are vile as creatures and have been vile as sinners, He does not hate and disdain you; rather, both people and love may find quick acceptance with Him. It is your responsibility to love Christ because He requires it, and it is your privilege to do so because He permits it.
#3 Your Honor To Love Christ
The noble blood that runs through their veins, the high lineage from which they descend, the great titles with which they are endowed, or the most famous earthly dignities to which they are elevated are not the true sources of honor for anyone. “Our stock and noble ancestors,” the pagan could remark, “and what we have not done and deserved ourselves, we can hardly call our own.” “Virtue is the only true nobility,” he adds. And the Bible says that the vilest men are exalted, Psalm 12:8 and that the Most High rules over the kingdom of men, giving it to whoever He pleases and installing the most base of men as rulers, Daniel 4:17.
Princes and nobles may make themselves viler than the earth beneath their feet, more base than the muck in the streets, as a result of their vices and wickedness. Only those who are truly gracious are truly honorable, according to God’s Word, and this grace of love for Jesus Christ bestows great respect and luster on everyone who possesses it. There is no bigger or more worthy object of your love than the Lord Jesus Christ, a person of such eminence and excellence. The love of Christ elevates the heart, and no one in the world has more truly great and generous souls than those who love Him the most. According to the spirit, so is the man, either base or honorable; and according to the chief love, so is the spirit. You are debased and dishonored if your heart is primarily drawn to inferior things, as all sublunary things are. If your heart is primarily drawn to Christ, who is superior good and exceedingly agreeable, you will be dignified and truly honorable. We read in Romans 5:5 that hope (that is, the grace of hope) makes no one ashamed, and the same can be said of this grace of love to Jesus Christ. It makes them ashamed. The greedy will be ashamed of their desire for wealth, the sensual will be ashamed of their want for pleasures, and the ambitious will be ashamed of their longing for honors. Happiness and true contentment will make everyone embarrassed of their excessive creature-love, especially when they reap the bitter fruit of their sin in their everlasting punishment, Romans 6:21. What fruit did you bear in those things of which you are now embarrassed because death is the end of those things? But the love of Christ does not make one ashamed; it is not a matter of dishonor, and so it is not, nor will it ever be, a subject of shame for anybody who loves Jesus Christ with all their heart and soul. If the wicked despise and scorn God’s people upon the account of this love, their scorns are their real glory as, on the contrary, their esteem of any upon the account of sin is a real shame and dishonor.
#4 Your Wisdom To Love Christ
Deuteronomy 4:6, Keep, therefore, and do them, for this is your wisdom and understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. None have such wisdom and understanding as those who have and keep this statute and commandment to love the Lord Jesus Christ, Psalm 111:10, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; a good understanding has all they that do His commandments.
The fear of the Lord and the love of Christ are always in conjunction, or rather the former includes the latter. This is the beginning and chief part of wisdom, and those who have the greatest understandings who have the strongest affections to the Lord Jesus Christ. The love of Christ is the most reasonable and, therefore, the wisest love. That love is most reasonable which is chiefly carried forth towards that object which is most suitable, and really most amiable and object as the Lord Jesus Christ, as appears in what has been already saying concerning Christ’s person, Christ’s love, and Christ’s benefits. Such as love other people or things with a chief love are mistaken in the objects of their love; they apprehend more excellency and desirableness in them than really is in them, and so their love is foolish and unreasonable, there being nothing worthy of it, nothing really amiable in the chief place, beneath and besides Christ.
Such as make the choice of Christ for the object of their chief love make the wisest choice. There are really those excellencies in Him which they apprehend and conceive. They are fools that are slow of heart to love Christ, and they are more wise that are most forward unto this love. It is your wisdom to love Christ chiefly and to love Christ ardently; such wisdom as will make your faces shine in the eyes of good men, and which will put a luster upon your spirits in the eyes of God. True wisdom does not consist in the invention of curious and quaint notions, in the framing of sound and rational deductions, in uttering the sense of the mind in neat and florid expressions; but the chief wisdom lies in the right placing of affections, and none have attained so high a pitch of true spiritual wisdom as those who have attained the highest pitch of love to Jesus Christ. It is a matter of great wonder when there is the greatest reason and the strongest arguments for the love of Christ, that men of the greatest parts and learning, who have heard of Christ, do not readily fall in love with Him and attain higher degrees of this love than others of a more inferior capacity; but the Scripture must be fulfilled, Matthew 11:25, 1 thank You, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them unto babes. Such of you as are but babes in worldly wisdom and human learning, as have but mean natural parts, and no improvement by education—yet if you love the Lord Jesus Christ above all people and things in the world, you are far wiser than the greatest scholars that are without this love.
#5 The Excellency Of This Love Unto Jesus Christ
As the knowledge of Christ is the most excellent knowledge, Philippians 3:8, Yes, doubtless, I count all things but loss, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord; so the love of Christ is the most excellent love. It is a love of the most excellent object, the Lord Jesus, who is so excellent. It is a love of the most excellent original; it comes down from heaven, it is wrought by the Spirit of God. It is a love that renders them most excellent that have it. The wicked that are without this love are like dross; the righteous that have it are like gold. The wicked that hate Christ are like dirt; the righteous that love Him are like jewels. Other loves darken and defile, the love of Christ brightens the spirit and renders men truly illustrious, the excellent of the earth.
#6 The Necessity Of This Love Unto Jesus Christ
The love of Christ is UNIVERSALLY necessary.
Some of you need to do this thing, and others of you need to do that—but all of you have the greatest need to love Christ. Some of you need this friend, and to love him that you may keep him: and others of you need another friend. One friend cannot serve the necessities of all—but all of you need Christ for your friend. He is the only friend who can serve all your necessities, and you need to love Him above all friends. It is necessary that you who are poor should love Christ, who have but few or no friends: and it is necessary that you who are rich should love Christ, who have many friends, Christ being a friend instead of all to them that have the most.
The love of Christ is ABSOLUTELY and INDISPENSABLY necessary.
It is not necessary that you should climb up and ascend to Jesus Christ, who is above; it is not necessary that you should abound in wealth, that you should have full bags and full coffers, and much riches in your houses; but it is absolutely necessary that you should have riches of this grace of love to Jesus Christ in your hearts. Food is not so necessary to satisfy your hunger, clothes are not so necessary to cover your nakedness, houses are not so necessary to shelter you from the injury of the weather. The most needful thing is not so necessary to your bodies as this love to Jesus Christ is necessary to your souls. You may be poor and in the lowest condition here on earth, and yet be happy while you live, and eternally happy in the other world if you have this love to Jesus Christ; but, without this love, whatever your riches and honors and friends, whatever your earthly delights and enjoyments are, though ever so desirable, ever so plentiful—yet you are miserable and shall be miserable. You may love other people and things in the world subordinately—but you must love Jesus Christ chiefly, otherwise, you are under the curse both of the law and gospel, and you cannot escape the vengeance of hell.
#7 The Usefulness Of This Love Unto Jesus Christ
The love of Christ is useful in PROSPERITY
to ballast the heart so that it is not overset with the full gales of a flourishing condition. It is of use to moderate the affections to lawful things, and it is of use to keep the heart from unlawful and sinful loves. If Christ does not have your hearts, some base and foolish lusts will have them, which will wound your consciences with guilt and pierce your hearts through with many sorrows.
The love of Christ is useful in ADVERSITY
to bear up the heart from sinking and being overwhelmed with the winds and waves of trouble and affliction. It is of use to establish the heart from being extraordinarily moved in the most stormy times. Not only faith—but love too, is of a fixing nature, to keep from amazing fears of evil tidings and the greatest perils; and of a strengthening nature, to stay and support the spirit, and keep off pressing griefs and despondencies in the darkest and most doleful days.
The love of Christ is useful to quicken and excite unto DUTY
This makes the yoke of Christ easy and will enable you to draw therein. This makes the burden of duty (so accounted by the most) to be no burden in esteem. If you have much love unto Christ, you will account duty to be your privilege and the service of Christ to be freedom; and none of His commands will be grievous—but all of them joyous unto you. If you have much love unto Christ, your hearts will be inflamed thereby with zeal for your Master’s glory, and you will never think you can do too much for Him.
The love of Christ is useful to arm you against TEMPTATIONS
If faith is a shield, love to Christ is a breastplate against the sharpest darts which the devil can throw at you. Love to Christ garrisons your hearts against this enemy, and is a strong defense against any overtures which the devil may make in his temptations to draw you to sin. “How can I do this evil and offend my dear Lord?” will be the answer of love to repel temptations to sin, whatever alluring proffers they may be accompanied with. Temptations will have no force to prevail over you if this love of Christ is strong within you.
The love of Christ is useful to fit you for the CROSS, and the greatest SUFFERINGS
which you may be called unto for the sake of Christ. If you have a great love for Christ, you will be ready to suffer for Christ with patience and with cheerfulness; the heaviest cross will seem light, disgrace and shame will be counted honor, losses will be esteemed gains, pains pleasures, or, at least, privileges. Prisons will seem palaces, and death will be accounted life. O how have some run to the stake, and embraced the flames of fire kindled to burn them when they have felt the fire of love to Christ burning strongly within them! Thus this love is useful in life.
The love of Christ is useful at DEATH
This love in its strength will put a beauty upon the aspect of death, which seems so grim and terrible unto the most. If you have much love to Christ, you will look upon death as Christ’s messenger, sent for you, to bring you out of the dark prison of the world and the body, and to convey you unto the mansions of glory where your dear Lord is, and you will not be unwilling to leave the world that you may live with Christ.
#8 The Delightfulness And Sweetness Of This Love Unto Christ
If there is sweetness in the love of the head, if there is delight and comfort in the love of Christ’s disciples for their Master’s sake, there is much more delight and comfort in the love of Christ Himself, the Master, for His own sake. The apostle tells us of comfort in love, Philippians 2:1, that is, in the love one of another—but the consolations in the love of Christ are far exceeding. There are no such sweet motions of heart as those of the strong and fervent outgoings of it in its love to Christ, especially when Christ draws near, and manifests His love unto the soul.
Christ rejoices in His love unto His disciples, and they may rejoice in their love to Him, and this joy in the love of Christ is full joy. John 15:11 says, These things have I spoken unto you, that My joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. In the former verse, Christ speaks of His love to them, and here of His joy in them. They were the objects of His joy as they were the objects of His love, and, according to the measure and strength of their love to Christ, so is the fullness of their joy in Christ. Song of Solomon 1:9 says You have ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse; you have ravished my heart with one of your eves, with one chain of your neck. These are words of Christ the beloved unto His spouse, the Church, expressing the ravishing delight which He found in her looks of faith or glances of love, and the chain of graces which she was adorned withal. How, then, may your hearts be ravished with unspeakable delight in looking upon Christ’s most amiable face, and in the fervent acting of your love unto Him! When a glance of His eye, a smile, a beam from His countenance, kindles a fire in the breast, and this fire of love to Christ burns and flames; O how sweet is this flame beyond what tongue is able to express!
#9 The Attainableness Of This Love To Christ
Brutes are not capable of this love to Christ—but you are capable. As your minds are capable of knowing Him, so your hearts are capable of loving Him. Others have attained this love, who were as much without it, and as much averse unto it as any of you may be. Here you are capable; hereafter, if you live and die without it, you will be utterly incapable. You have now the means of grace and, as of other graces, so of this grace of love to Christ, in the diligent use of the means, you may attain thereunto. Thus I am done with the motives to excite you unto the love of Christ.
This article is edited from “The True Christian’s Love to the Unseen Christ” by Thomas Vincent. Check our collection of articles on this topic in the related posts, alternatively, you can get a copy of the book from Amazon.
