Of course I know how the song goes...but I am convinced we sing many songs we don't mean. "O How I Love Jesus" is one of many. This is another one of those areas in church life where I know we mean well, we have good motives, we really want to love Jesus - But when the dust has settled on Sunday evenings and we've sang, preached, prayed, fellowshipped, given offerings, shook hands, hugged, and said things like, "Love you brother..." and "Praying for you"...do we really love Jesus or do we just like Him a lot?
I think we like Him a lot. I think we appreciate what He did for us and does for us. But LOVE Him? I don't think so. Here's what I observe in my own life - and in the churches where I preach each week: We love our church. We love our music. We love our preacher. We love the way we feel when we're at church. We love one another (most of the time). Some of us love the old hymns while some of us love the "new stuff." We love our Sunday School class and our Sunday School teacher. We love all that our church does for the elderly, and the ministries we offer for the children. We love the choir, the ensemble, the soloists. We love church trips, and church fellowships, and church Christmas parties. We love the men's church campouts and the women's retreats. We love to wear t-shirts that say we love Jesus. We love to wear crosses. We love to promote Jesus on our bumpers and our bodies. We love to sing, "O How I love Jesus" we just don't love Jesus.
It's OK if you disagree. You're not enjoying reading this article? Well, you're in good company. I'm not really enjoying writing it. I know I need to take a class on how to be tactful...but till then I'll make an awkward effort to speak the truth in love. Or, in like.
Much of what we do at church we could do without Jesus. And too often we do. Take me for instance... I've been preaching so long that I could probably give a few good speeches on Sunday about politics, sports, the economy, etc... sprinkling in a little scripture here and there for good measure and never mention the name of Jesus. It's possible no one would be offended. What if we removed the name Jesus from the songs we sing? Would anybody notice? What if we stopped praying in Jesus' name? If we just closed our prayers with "amen" would anybody really notice?
The sad truth is Jesus is not a real priority in church today. We can say "It's all about Jesus" but it's not. It's all about us. That's why we need a revival. That's what we need a surprising outpouring of the Holy Spirit. That's why we need an awakening...a stirring...a mighty move of God.
Because we've become predictable, programmed, and void of Jesus. We've gotten so used to having weekly worship services where we seldom if ever worship Jesus - Many of us wouldn't know how to worship any other way. Maybe the problem is as I have said before...It's not that we love Jesus too little. We simply love ourselves too much.
Whatta you say we make a promise? Me and you? Let's promise ourselves that we will put our attention back on Jesus...we will turn our hearts back toward Him. I don't know what that will look like...but what if we did? I really want to love Jesus - and if, by chance, I already do...I want to love Him more.
The first and greatest command is that we love the Lord... God help us work on that. MM
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