As to loving Jesus, he made it quite clear that to love him means to obey him and to keep his commandments. It is not some emotional experience or some content-less feeling. It is a very particular sort of love: a love that says no to self and that says yes to God. 

Hmm, a nice sentiment that. What Christian would quibble over this? Isn’t loving Jesus the main game? Isn’t that all we need as believers? Well, sorta! Of course we are to love Jesus. But that is not the end of the matter. Both of these key terms – ‘Jesus’ and ‘love’ – must be given some actual specific content, or they will mean absolutely nothing – and may even lead us astray.

What exactly do we mean by ‘love’? And who exactly is this ‘Jesus’ that we are to love? These are very important questions indeed. The truth is, anyone can say they ‘love Jesus’. But not everyone actually does love – in the biblical sense of the word – Jesus, at least as he is defined and understood by Scripture.

So we must be much more specific and definite in what this is all about. For many people love can just be lust, or sentimentalism, or accepting anything and everything, and so on. And there are countless versions of Jesus – but only the biblical Jesus is the true Jesus.

As to loving Jesus, he made it quite clear that to love him means to obey him and to keep his commandments. It is not some emotional experience or some content-less feeling. It is a very particular sort of love: a love that says no to self and that says yes to God. See more on this vital truth here: billmuehlenberg.com/2011/06/18/loving-god-and-keeping-the-commandments/

And all this talk about loving Jesus is determined by what the Bible teaches. Without Scripture we would not know what real love is, and we would not know who the real Jesus is. So we must be much more precise – and biblical – if we want to speak about loving Jesus.

A recent social media exchange helps to bring all this into focus. I trust my friend will not mind if I share this for the edification of my readers (he did kindly like my reply – bless you sir!). I had put up a post on one current topic of interest. It had to do with a former Qantas pilot who has been at the forefront of resisting medical mandates and statist overreach as he stands for freedom. I had said this:

Some Christians have asked about the champion freedom fighter Graham Hood concerning his being a Seventh-day Adventist. Is it a cult? Should we work with him? I would say two things about this:
1. The noted cult expert Walter Martin was somewhat ambivalent here. He said this in The Kingdom of the Cults: “It is my conviction that one cannot be a true Jehovah’s Witness, Mormon, Christian Scientist, etc., and be a Christian in the Biblical sense of the term; but it is perfectly possible to be a Seventh-day Adventist and be a true follower of Jesus Christ despite heterodox concepts which will be discussed.” See my article on Ben Carson (also SDA and also someone we support) in the link below.
2. This is once again about co-belligerency. We support Carson and Hood at least in terms of the culture wars, just as we supported Israel Folau, even though he is anti-Trinitarian. Theological orthodoxy is of course important, but there is a place for working with others in specific causes, such as in the pro-life, pro-family and pro-freedom wars (see the link below).

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