Does undying love for Jesus as Lord strip me of my freedom?

On a cold and unpleasant May Day here in Hertfordshire, UK today, Gordon and I stayed indoors, cosy and warm.  After some domestic tasks were done and dusted, we listened together to an online sermon by J.R.Vassar, from New York. 

If you want to check it out - and we do hope you have/carve out time - worth it!

Here is the link to "Love Incorruptible", a sermon on undying love for our Lord Jesus Christ - and the alternatives.    The site is navigation-friendly, you only have to click on the play-button.  Today's post consists of notes from this sermon mingled with our own thoughts and responses, with much thanks to JR.  

Ephesians 6:24:  "Grace to all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with an undying love."

Oh, to love our Lord Jesus Christ supremely with a genuine love and devotion, loyalty, with an undying never-ending, forever love, resulting in glad obedience to Jesus as our Lord!

We are born lovers; born with capacity and inclination to give our hearts to something. We are incurable worshippers:

"When we cease to worship God, we do not worship nothing, we worship anything.” GK Chesterton.

Whatever we love most will begin to define us and shape us.

"We are to a large degree the sum of our loves, and we will of moral necessity grow into the image of what we love most.” Tozer.

Our loves give shape to our lives, they will define and direct us.

1. Our loves define us – our identity and meaning and sense of self, our joy and confidence get tied up in what we love most. We can’t begin to see our lives functioning without these things. Without these loves, we would not know who we were. Our greatest loves define us.
2. Our loves direct us - we make our decisions in light of what we love most. What we love most will be the most influential factor in our decision making.  What motivates and shapes our decision-making?

We need to identify our highest loves and  re-prioritise.  We do not destroy our loves, but when we love Jesus as our Lord, we demote them so Christ is supreme.  How and where do we spend and invest our time and money; our thoughts and imaginations and ideas and energy?  What do we love the most?

The essence of the Christian faith is that we trust and treasure Jesus above all things so that Jesus defines us and he directs us. If we love him in this way, it will mean a life of absolute and completely willing surrender and glad obedience, because my Lord Jesus Christ means most to us.

 John 14:15 "If you love me, you will obey what I command"  

 Does this mean I have to prove to Jesus that I love Him?  Here we go again:  all that two-faced loveless duty, those rules and regulations?  Take half a second and  read John 14:15 again: it starts off with love.  Jesus says "Love Me"  He wants our deepest affections, our highest loyalty and for it all to be pure joy on our part.   The obedience will follow.

Aaah but I want to call my own shots.  All this obedience business is nothing but dehumanising.  I want to be led by my glands, my culture, my preferences, my tastes, my peers - not by God.  Come on, give me my freedom! Freedom to make our own moral choices, about parenting, sex, money, and power, my immediate pleasure, my fulfillment.  We want to be free. But are we free?

All loves require a loss of independence. We voluntarily release our independence to the objects loved. Many can attest to how much they have  sacrificed to their loves.   Think for a moment of marriage, children, jobs.  We give up our independence  if we love our spouses, and if we love our children, our jobs and our hobbies.  We release our independence to who and what we love.

Conclusion:  If you love, you will not be free - you will gladly not be free.  You will put in a 90 hour week at work, you will spend time and money on your hobbies.  You will go hard after what you love.  You become slaves to what you love.  We think we are so free.   Are we?

The highest loves in our lives enslave us in that we have to have them for our identity, significance, joy and our direction.…Whether it is a successful career, a relationship, a body type, we sacrifice for them and struggle hard to keep them. We are never really free.


And to crown it all, Jesus also sounds ever so enslaving!  Even demanding.   Everything that I love become my master and now Jesus also wants to be my Master and my Lord.  It is vital to keep in mind that Jesus is every bit as demanding as He is loving. OK then, how loving is Jesus?

Here is one glimpse:

Philippians 2:7 "...but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, and being found in the appearance of a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross!"  

The risen Jesus' sacrificial love melts my mistrust. 
Jesus never requires from us what he has not already done for us. The self-less suffering and deep, deep love of Jesus, the lover of our souls melt the mistrust, the suspicion and scepticism in our hearts. I can trust a God like that - I can have full confidence in the Father who gave His only Son and in Jesus
who gave Himself on the cross in my place.

The difference is that Jesus is a better Master - a better Lord - by far!  Infinitely better than our "other loves".  We have to see His act of sacrifice before we see His demand of obedience.We love because he first loved us - we obey our Lord Jesus Christ because we love Him with an undying love.  We obey Him because we trust Him, who sacrificed Himself for us, to be our Master, our first love, our highest joy and treasure.  Hallelujah!

How do we cultivate this love?  Ask the Lord to pour out His love in your heart by the work of the Holy Spirit that He has given to you.   To cultivate any relationship takes time and truth.  We need time and truth to get beyond being merely attracted to Jesus, beyond admiration from a distance and to that place of undying love and glad obedience.  

There is an indescribable difference between duty and delight.   Here is an example, say you propose, put a ring on the finger of the one you proposed to, the setting is all romantic, the recipient glows and you pipe up with:  it's only my duty.  Isn't it the height of insult!


A genuine  and undying love for Jesus comes from a heart bursting with affection for Him.   I don't obey Jesus to avoid guilt and feel a bit more righteous or very righteous or more comfortable before God.  Dead and deadly legalism is motivated by guilt and pride and independence, not by love.  When I am smitten by God's love and His grace and love Him with an undying and first love - there's vitality and glad submission and joy.  Then I am truly set free.

Does this mean I have to eliminate the loves in my life?     No, it does not mean you discontinue your marriage, stop loving your children, give up your job and your hobbies and interests.   It does mean, if they mean more to you than Jesus that you need to demote them, so Christ is supreme.


Here is the reality check:

Deuternomy 6:5  "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength"  And love others as Jesus has loved us.  

And for those who love Jesus with an undying love, who obey Him gladly because they love and treasure Him most of all?  Grace is poured out  those who love Jesus with an undying love. For those who treasure Christ above all things, God pours out his grace upon them.   God is active among a people like this with life changing grace and power.  Talk about blessings galore!

Ephesians 6:24

"Grace to all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with an undying love."

Despite this wonderful doxology, the Ephesian church lost their first love...... Revelation 2:1-5. 

And it happened NOT because God's Word is powerless, but because they allowed their love to deteriorate to lukewarm "love". unstead of increasing and abounding in undying love.

John 15:9

"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in My love"

Why sermons work

Truths in tension more than often "demands" uninterrupted time to get to understand them better. That is why Gordon and I both agreed, driving on the country road back from Spicer Street this morning: sermons (ie one man doing the talking in the pulpit, while the rest listen) are ideal carved-out times in order to follow the flow of an argument. While we sat in the pew upstairs with all age-groups around us, there was slight chance to jump up and go and make a cup of coffee or get distracted in any other way.


Happily glued to the pew, we listened for the duration of the sermon, to our young Irish pastor, Reuben, focusing us on what God is doing in Romans 9-11. Because we sat still, we had time to hear that God can be trusted and that as we get to know Him better, so we can trust Him better. Without being side-tracked, we heard that central to God's choosing His own, is His grace.

Undisturbed and uninterrupted by either ourselves or any other distraction, we listened to Paul's inspired reasoning and understood something of the vastness and the depth, width and the extent of God's choosing grace and why God's promises have not failed.  Soon we found ourselves overwhelmed by the presence of God and His love; by our God watching, fore-knowing, fore-loving, predestinating sovereignly and graciously from eternity.

Ok, so those in the pew were not exactly in a position to shout out, "but what about......!?" No worries. The Scriptures expressed some objections on our behalf.

God chooses and has he right to do so, and God's grace is free and freely available to all.

It is all about God's vast and free and deep grace and nothing about us drumming up our own righteousness to become right with Him. And right there, "willingly anchored to our seats" we appreciated afresh the wonder of our Father and Saviour's saving kindness. 

He does no one injustice by choosing people by grace - because his deep and wide and free grace is offered freely in Jesus to "whoever believes". Let it be known: none of us will be able to give God a compelling reason why it is His fault that we were excluded from heaven. Let it be known loudly and clearly: God is indiscriminate in his offer of salvation in Jesus. If you call on the Name of Jesus, you WILL be saved. Period.

We joined our church friends in the hall for chin-wags and coffee and later walked back to the car on one of St Alban's olde world cobbled pavements, with a spring in our steps: humbled (not humiliated), secure in our salvation, motivated to pray, motivated to share the good news, optimistic that God can keep us and full of a joy that will help us to get through the tough things in life, sure of a  brilliant future with our God of all grace.

Just in case you wonder.....there are unlimited opportunity for discussions and questions! This evening Gordon and I had a question for Dan after his sermon, and what a lively informative three-way conversation us three had outside in the sharp winter air!

London Bus Slogans and Assessing God

Today, I came across an online article in the "New Statesman" on Richard Dawkinson's site, referring to the slogan on display by secular humanists on central London buses last year: "THERE IS PROBABLY NO GOD. NOW STOP WORRYING AND ENJOY YOUR LIFE." Every time Gordon and I  spotted one on a typical red London bus - we prayed.  The slogan turned out to be great discussion opener. Of course it was also a sickenly helpful tool in satan, the deceiver's paw.
We wonder if  Mark Watson has heard the good news of Jesus and shrugged it off in unbelief?  Did he get the wrong end of the stick in regard to what a true Christian is?  Has he not heard that Jesus saves?
Mark is not against atheism but at the same time, he finds Richard Dawkins to be a smug, happy-clappy atheist and as annoying as Christians used to be to him. Mark's quotes/data/info about God are mostly gained by reading Central London bus slogans (at least as far as this article goes). And he casually concludes that the consensus seems to be that it is unlikely there's a God.


As Mark assesses God and draws his own conclusions about others' thoughts of Him, the inevitable question comes to mind: How much information has Mark have of the God of the Bible - other than sloganeering? And has he been inclined to earnestly seek God? "...he rewards those who EARNESTLY seek him" Hebrews 11:6.  Clearly not.  We wish that (priceless) Mark and Richard Dawkins would earnestly seek the living God and come to Jesus so that the day of reckoning, Mark mentions in his article, may be a day of welcoming into heaven and not a day of sending away to hell, for both.

God Botherers by Mark Watson - Published 18 February 2010 in the New Statesman (London)

Mark Watson writes:
There's "probably no God", apparently. I read it on the back of a bus last year, courtesy of an advertisement paid for by the British Humanist Association. Mind you, then the Christian Party countered with its own series of ads claiming: "There definitely is a God." For a period last year, in fact, all my spiritual guidance came from slogans painted on buses. If confronted with an ethical dilemma, I'd stroll down the high street and wait for the number 42 to trundle past with "Morality itself being a construct, only your conscience can be your guide" written along the side.

But now that the bus wars have died down, the consensus seems to be that it's unlikely there's a God. Ever since Richard Dawkins wrote his book on the "delusion" a few years ago, the anti-God industry has enjoyed a boom period. The shelves have been crammed with titles such as God Is Not Great, 2,000 Years of Disbelief, 1,000 Tiresomely Reiterated Anti-Church Arguments, and so on.

An atheist Christmas service at London's Bloomsbury Theatre was a box-office smash. Dawkins is now the most popular God-basher since the days when Christians used to be fed to lions. You can hardly have a nativity play without the bespectacled bogeyman storming the stage, scattering the little shepherds and angels with a cry of "Where is the proof of this?!"

In short, atheists are becoming as annoying as believers used to be. Yes, Christianity and all the world religions are based on ancient, unreliable texts; and, yes, they've been used to legitimise awful deeds; and, yes, it's awfully difficult for a man to come back from the dead. But the majority of people in the UK were quite capable of working this out before the new wave of happy-clappy atheists rocked up. Do we have to keep congratulating ourselves on how we've outgrown those silly old faiths? If it used to be awkward to have a Christian ring on your doorbell and give you a leaflet, it's scarcely less irritating to be at a dinner party and have some recent graduate mouthing off about evolution and the Big Bang.

All this godless smugness is almost enough to make you hope that the whole God story is true, after all. If atheists are right, they're going to have very little opportunity to gloat about it. Their last words will be something like: "So, I was right, eternal nothingness awaits. Damn." Whereas if there is a Judgement Day to look forward to, and God blasts on the last trumpet to summon us to give an account of ourselves, Dawkins's five minutes in the spotlight is going to be even more eagerly awaited than Tony Blair at the Chilcot inquiry. Perhaps, like Blair, he'll claim that he was just doing his best with the available information. Or maybe he'll say he read it on a bus. Either way, the publicity won't hurt those book sales.

God so generously and amply revealed His will, Himself in the Bible, in Jesus Christ, in nature, by the Holy Spirit.  Let us pray with Paul for ourselves, our children and grandchildren, our friends and families, our churches and for rampant arch-sceptics like Richard Dawkins and Mark Watson as Paul intercedes for the Colossians.

 Colossians in 1:9-10:

"And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God"

"THERE IS PROBABLY NO GOD.  NOW STOP WORRYING AND ENJOY YOUR LIFE."
The error is in believing that living a life that respects God imposes restrictions. Rather, to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ is the most liberating thing in the world, more than any hedonistic, ephemeral fix could ever give you.

Truth is a precious and priceless commodity—which no doubt explains why the Proverbs writer admonished:
“Buy the truth, and sell it not” (23:23).

Jesus Himself said:

Romans 10:14: How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?