Love Jesus Also
John 8:42 "Jesus said to them, If God were your father, you would love Me, for I went forth and came from God; for I did not come of Myself, but He sent Me."
John 14:21 "He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me. And he who loves Me shall be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will reveal Myself to him."
My mother-in-law once complained about a church she attended because it seemed so focused on God that it neglected Christ. It disturbed her to hear so many sermons with Christ mentioned only peripherally. Sometimes I think that may be His wish. The Son being equal to the Father but never regarding himself as anything but the servant. Still, he asked for our love reflected in obedience, claimed to be the Father in the flesh, "I am."
And we should love Him for his sacrifice. Consider that he knew his death from the beginning. The carpenter handled the implements of his death every day of his life. Yet he never wavered. He never sinned, even BEFORE the Spirit came upon Him. He focused on the Father resolutely, denying Himself so much of the satisfactions of life, realizing He had been asked to cast off the perfect life in a gruesome, demeaning death. Delaying the rewards of "now" for the reward of eternity.
Every day of His life.
Then, on the night before the cross, He gave His disciples His last sermon, one that dwelt on love, on caring, on hope, talking as a father who would soon send his children into a brutal world to fend for themselves. Talking through the ages to all who would follow. Talking of the circularity of loving him, loving the Father, being loved in return. Talking of the Comforter who holds the children in His invisible arms. Living with them, "abiding", He in them, they in Him.
"Love me, love my Dad,"
