Jesus Loves Me, This I Know

What is the first song you remember learning as a child.  For many children today it is a TV jingle for a fast food restaurant or some cartoon.  For generations of Americans and also for children around the world, however, it used to be “Jesus Loves Me”.  Today in our country where less than 50% of people regularly attend church and even less attend Sunday school, this is a song few know about a Savior that few know.  It is a song about His nature and character that few are told of.  But Love is the Name of God that we must never leave out of our conversations with others.  God is LOVE.

The lost mangle this name with confused theologies or lying philosophies.  If God is love, the confused theology states, then anything goes.  God is a doting grandfather who is short sighted or completely and willfully oblivious to any wrong thing done by his beloved children.  Since He is loving He will accept all things without a word of judgment.  This theology confuses God’s love with the evil doctrine of license.  We can live as we please since God is love.  All manner of perversity is now allowed in places called churches because God’s love doesn’t care if people practice that sin or not. 

Lying philosophies also challenge the children of our day about God’s love.  The first point is a philosophical question.  If God is love why do bad things happen?  A loving God would not let wars rage, people suffer from incurable illnesses or children die.  Therefore, God is not love and if He is not what He says He is then He isn’t at all.  This teaching wants God on man’s terms the same as false theology.  A question to ask these amateur philosophers is, “If God got rid of all evil, would He also have to get rid of you?  At what point would God have to end the practice of sin?” 

In reality God has done more than eliminate evil.  He has forgiven those who practice evil if they will come to His Son as Savior.  Christ has died to save us from the penalty of sin and the guilt of sin’s practice.  Instead of killing all sinners, God offered them all forgiveness.  That is love that even the philosophers can’t get around.  The God who made us sacrificed His only begotten Son so that we vile sinners might have eternal life.  Jesus Christ agreed to this and gave up His life willingly for us.  Jesus loves me.

“Jesus loves me, this I know; for the Bible tells me so.  Little ones to Him belong, they are weak, but He is strong.  Jesus loves me, He who died; heaven’s gates to open wide.  He will take away my sin; let His little child come in.  Yes, Jesus loves me.  Yes, Jesus loves me.  Yes, Jesus loves me.  The Bible tells me so.”  Anna Warner wrote this hymn and taught it to the cadets at West Point military academy.  Many of those young men were sure that Jesus loved them before they faced the daily threat of death in the Civil War. 

 

 

 

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