God has designed you to love Him better over time. So you start when God’s Spirit gives you new life. You love God for the first time. Your heart, soul, and mind have become alive to Him. But there is much room to grow your love for Him. As you get to know Him better, you love Him more thoroughly and you begin to behave better.
I can’t help but think of that scene in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (the Muppet's’ version) where Scrooge sees the ghost of Christmas present – the large jolly, festive one. And the spirit says to Scrooge, “Come. Know me better man!” What a grand invitation!
It is life’s purpose, to know God better. The wonderful, marvelous depths of the One who is always near to be loved. He invites us to know Him better. And as you learn of Him, then you are to love Him and obey Him. This is the Christian walk.
Thankfully, the LORD gives you opportunities to learn about yourself and about Him under the many circumstances of life: leaving your parent’s home, marrying, raising children, paying bills, weekly worship, suffering death, experiencing betrayal, interacting with people who do not agree with you, celebrations, war, peace, wealth accumulation or lack of funds.1
Over time, and by the work of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God, you are changed, matured, sanctified and transformed. The Apostle Paul taught us this is how our new life is supposed to work. We are, “...To put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” [Ephesians 4:22-24].
We learn that the “selfs” are in conflict. The bad self is the one that wants to be selfish. He wants to live his own way. Self-absorbed and sinning. This is the self that would like to wing-it in his relationships and freely make his own decisions every day. This self is supposed to be left for dead. The Apostle says we are to put it off.
The new self, on the other hand, is the alive self. It is the self with a victorious future. It is the one who wants to know God better so that he can love Him fuller. It is the self that wishes not to sin continually, but obey the commands of the Lord Jesus, for that is the effect when you love Jesus. If you love Him, then you obey Him. Period.
John 14:21 says, “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”
So true love will produce obedience.
Albert Barnes explains, “This is the only proper evidence of love to Jesus, for mere profession is no proof of love; but that love for him which leads us to do all his will, to love each other, to deny ourselves, to take up our cross, and to follow him through evil report and through good report, is true attachment. The evidence which we have that a child loves its parents is when that child is willing, without hesitation, gainsaying, or complaining, to do all that the parent requires him to do. So the disciples of Christ are required to show that they are attached to him supremely by yielding to all his requirements, and by patiently doing his will in the face of ridicule and opposition, 1 John 5:2-3.”2
Barnes’ reference says: 2By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. 3For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. (1 John 5)
Barnes’s point is that feeling good about Jesus, and saying, “I really, really love Him!” is insufficient love. It is lip service, or maybe a shallow deception your own heart has contrived.3 Whereas, actual love for Jesus will transform you into an obeyer of Jesus. If you keep coming up with reasons for why you disobey Him but still profess your love for Him, then I suggest Jeremiah (see previous footnote) has spotted your problem.
Philippians 4:11-13 Paul writes, “I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”
See Barnes’ Notes on the Bible, John 14:15.
Here is one of those helpful life verses. It is important to think of your own heart’s potential to fool you. Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”
I agree. That ghost was always so joyous and inviting. The line planted itself in me and has stuck with me.
Love this, "Come in and know me better, man!" is such a joyous part of the Christmas Carol and always reminds me of Christ.