I’m sure we’ve all heard the expression “fall in love with Jesus,” before.
We see the term everywhere from devotionals and blog posts, to books and sermons. It’s become a regular part of Christian culture to aspire to “fall in love with Jesus.” And as we grow in our faith, we aspire to do what we’re taught — fall in love with Him. Well, as a believer, what if I told you that you shouldn’t?
Falling in love is with that person you have a crush on because of how amazing they are, but, eventually, it goes away. Maybe you find out something bad or undesirable about them, or you just get over them and your feelings change. But God doesn’t love us that way; He loves us in spite of how unlovable we are, so who are we to love Him back only for a season?
As believers, we should go deeper than “falling in love” with our Savior. We should choose to love Him, because He chose to love us. (1 John 4:19)
What is “falling in love?”
According to Psychology Today:
“People can fall in love over time, but most often it is sudden, developing quickly. It is called falling in love because it seems beyond control—a little like falling down. Or tripping over something… It is not a voluntary process.”
And according to Science Daily, it only takes one-fifth of a second to fall in love.
Sure, you could argue that “falling in love with Jesus” is just a saying and we know the heart of it, so there’s no reason to address it — but it goes much deeper than that. If we don’t have the right perspective of love between our Creator and His Creation, it sets us up to have a faulty worldview of the other relationships around us.
God doesn’t fall in love with us
In her article, “Is it Love or Infatuation?,” blogger Phylicia Masonheimer briefly addresses this, saying that “falling in love” with Jesus is actually unbiblical. She says,
“Love is a conscious choice that requires intentional action…. Lasting love is never an accident. It takes work.”
Delta also makes the point, that if you can fall in love, you can also fall out of love.
What do you do when the feelings are gone?
What happens when the feelings are gone? Will you turn away from Him? Will you decide this life isn't for you? Will you desperately try to run away from Him, only to find Him standing there at every turn?
Well, He numbers our wanderings, and despite our efforts to avoid Him, ignore Him or get away from Him, it doesn’t change how He feels about us. In Matthew 18:12, it says that He leaves the 99 sheep to find the one that’s strayed.
The song “Just Surrender” by Starfield beautifully pictures this, saying, from God’s perspective, “you keep denying My advances, but you’ll never be out of chances. My love will follow you, no matter how far you run.”
This kind of love goes far beyond feelings.
What does this say of marriages?
And what does this say of marriages? If we are called to love like Christ (John 15:12) and men are specifically told to love their wives as Christ loves the church (Ephesians 5:28), then that means, when the romantic feelings of love die down (and it always does eventually), you can't base everything off of falling in love with someone. You have to base your love off of a choice, not a feeling.
And furthermore, God doesn’t divorce us. If we treated our relationship with Christ like falling in love, then He would leave us whenever we mess up and He would eventually stop loving us and then move on to someone else, like how it is when you have a crush on someone, but He's not like that. Instead, He makes the conscious choice to forget our sins and love us for better or for worse. (Hebrews 8:12)
But now that we’ve already been saturated with this idea of “falling in love with Jesus,” what can we do to go beyond that?
The Solution
Make the choice to love God, and love Him when you don’t feel like it.
When things are hard, when you feel like your prayers are reflecting off the ceiling, when you don’t understand and when things aren’t going as you planned or expected—Pray anyway. Trust Him anyway. Choose love and obedience anyway.
And it definitely helps in choosing love, to remember His love for you.
As we see in the book of Hosea, this was the relationship between God and Israel. Israel said they knew Him, but then went off to worship idols. “’… She decked herself with earrings and jewelry, and went after her lovers; but Me she forgot,’ says the Lord (Hosea 2:13).” But in the next verse He says He will allure Israel into the wilderness and speak comfort to her (Hosea 2:14). He withdrew himself and His blessings from Israel, temporarily, waiting for them to see their wrongdoing and turn to Him; waiting for them to pursue Him back (Hosea 5:15). He still chose to love Israel and said, “I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely… (Hosea 14:4).”
As opposed to the example of falling in love with your crush, choosing love looks a lot different -- it looks like pursuit. Instead of the person who falls in love with you because of how great he thinks you are, Christ’s love for us is like a guy pursuing someone unworthy of His love. She may avoid Him, be indifferent towards Him, and only talk to or pay attention to Him when she needs something from Him, and there’s nothing she can offer Him and nothing about her that would make her desirable or worthy of Him or His love, yet He still chases after her and only wants her to pursue Him back in response.
But He's a gentleman, and won't force His love on her. That's true pursuit and what choosing to love looks like; Christ loving us regardless of our inadequacies and us choosing to love Him back in response to His love.
So you really shouldn’t “fall in love with Jesus.” You should, instead choose to love Him as He has chosen to love us.
Don’t fall in love with Jesus. Just love Him.
