Everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven (Matt. 10:32-33).
Have you ever thought about this? We are demanded by God to love Him, worship Him, glorify Him, and acknowledge Him. Does that offend you or is the greatest news you have ever heard?
Is Jesus — is God — an egomaniac? How you answer that question will dramatically affect the way you relate to, worship, love, and follow the God revealed in the Bible. There are many that cannot follow a God that they perceive is an egomaniac. Sam storms has written an excellent response to this question that I have posted this week in my blog. Please read it prayerfully, reflectively, and openly and I think it will cause you to worship him more than ever.
The answer can be given in a syllogism. (You recall from your logic classes at the university: All men are mortal. Plato was a man. Therefore, Plato was mortal. Two premises, which if they are true, lead to a true conclusion.)
My first premise is a definition of one essential aspect of true, authentic love. In other words, if this is missing, our feelings and actions may bring some relief or pleasure to the one we love, but it will fall short of true, authentic love, complete love—love the way God calls us to love.
Premise #1: Love desires and works and is willing to suffer to enthrall the beloved with the fullest and longest happiness.
Now, I think this is what the Christian Scriptures teach, but mainly I want you to understand what I mean, and follow my argument. You’ll have to decide for yourselves whether you think this definition is true. But for now, see if you follow me and see if the syllogism is valid.
So when I say, “love desires and works and is willing to suffer” I simply mean that authentic love is never mere action without a heart that cares, and never a mere emotion that has no action behind it. And that this desire and this action — when they are real — are willing to suffer in order to do the beloved as much good as they can.
And when I say that the aim of love’s desiring and working and suffering is to “enthrall” the beloved, I mean that someday — sooner or later — the beloved will be caught up in an experience that is so soul-pervading and body-pervading that no part of personal existence is left out, and that the experience will involve a kind of self-forgetfulness that is the mark of all true ecstasy.
And when I say that love aims to enthrall the beloved with “the fullest and longest happiness,” I mean a happiness, or joy, or satisfaction, or contentment, or pleasure, or gladness, or delight — the word is not the essence, the experience is — that is so full it cannot be fuller and so long it cannot be longer. This means that love aims at the infinite and eternal joy of the beloved.
Which is why I said, we can have many feelings for people, and many actions toward people that may bring them some relief or pleasure, but if we don’t desire and work toward this fullest and longest happiness, we do not love them fully, truly, authentically, as we are called to do by Jesus.
So that is Premise #1: Love desires and works and is willing to suffer to enthrall the beloved with the fullest and longest happiness.
Premise #2: Being eternally enthralled with Jesus as the decisive revelation of God is the fullest and longest happiness in the universe.
This is because Jesus is the wisest, smartest, strongest, deepest, most creative, most loving, most just, and therefore, most admirable and most valuable person in the universe — because he is himself the very essence of God. So there is no more satisfying experience than to know and admire and be the everlasting friend and family of Jesus. God created us to be fully and eternally enthralled with God through his Son Jesus Christ.
Conclusion: Therefore, when Jesus tells us that we must love him — treasure him, be satisfied in him — above all others, he is loving us.
He is desiring and working and willing to suffer to enthrall us with the fullest and longest happiness, namely, himself.
Here is the end of the matter: God is the one being in the universe for whom self-exaltation is not the act of a needy ego, but an act of infinite giving. The reason God seeks our supreme praise, or that Jesus seeks our supreme love, is not because he’s needy and won’t be fully God until he getsit, but because we are needy and won’t be fully happy until we give it.
This is not arrogance. This is grace.
This is not egomania. This is love.
And the very heart of the Christian gospel is that this is what Christ died to achieve — our full and everlasting enjoyment of the greatness of God.
Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God (1 Peter 3:18).
In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore(Psalm 16:11
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