Red Letters/Black Letters: Day 122: The Chicken or the Egg

"You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in my name He may give you." John 15:16

I grew up in a hymnal church, I don't think the church ever sang a "modern" worship song until I was in college. I grew up in a hymnal church and I loved hymns, still do for that matter. I grew up in a hymnal church and I hated the song O, How I Love Jesus. I had no problem with the verses, but I could not stand the chorus, it bothered me to no end that the reason we loved Jesus was because he first loved us. I thought, and still think for that matter, that it is not a good enough reason to love Jesus, it might be a good enough reason to think about loving Jesus, maybe even a good enough reason to begin loving Jesus, but it is not a good enough reason to still love Jesus. 

You see, my big problem was the word "because," to me it implies that it is the main, or perhaps only reason. And that drove [drives] me crazy. Do we love our parents because they first loved us? Do we choose our spouse because they loved us first? If not, and I am pretty sure the answer is no, then why is it all right to love Jesus because he first loved us? 

Now, all of that still bugs me, but I have begun to look at the song a little differently. Perhaps the author thought of the above verse when thinking about the song. Perhaps they thought of "because" meaning that since Jesus first loved us it opened the door to us loving him. Perhaps they thought, 'Well Jesus chose us, and because of that we can choose him,' that I may be able to get behind. It makes sense to me that the only way that we can love Jesus is because he chose to love us first, but that doesn't make it our reason for loving him. 

I may be quibbling over insignificant definitions, but to me it makes a difference. Because we don't have to love Jesus. We can choose, and many do, to not love Jesus. To me this says that while Jesus's love for us did indeed open the door to the possibility of us loving him, it doesn't compel us to, nor is it the reason for when we do.

+ Did that make any sense? ;)

+ Why do you love Jesus?