He Loves Me, I Loved Him Not

And Jesus, looking at him, loved him.
Mark 10:21

And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. (Mark 10:21-22)

I want to know the rest of the story. What becomes of this young man who so earnestly ran and knelt before Jesus, referring to Him as the “Good Teacher” and asking how he could earn eternal life (Mark 10:17). Will he lose what he desires to gain what he cannot lose? Will he later experience the full goodness of Jesus Christ? Does he know when Jesus looks at him, that Jesus loves him?

I am the one kneeling and asking, then turning to leave at the answer. Jesus looks at me, loves me and watches me leave.

Why is it so difficult to recognize that Jesus loves me?

If I could gaze on His face long enough before leaving, would I stay? If I could understood the expanse of His love, measured in arms stretched taunt on a tree, would I embrace the life that He gives me without complaint? If I could place the tips of my fingers in the piercings in the raw of His feet, would I trust Him when He says not that way, but this way? If I could fathom the depth He descended from Heaven to Hell on my behalf, would my confidence falter when darkness settles in? If I could hold the weight of eternity, would I trust Him with my past, my present and my future?

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Ephesians 3:17-19

I am not alone in my struggle to know that Jesus loves me. His love is a love that surpasses knowledge. A love that requires granted power to comprehend. His love is not constrained by the boundaries of my feeble human understanding.

When I go to the place where doubt spreads like fog (John 20:26-27), His love for me is not diminished.
When I question His intent, His love for me is not diminished (John 11:32).
When I turn and leave, His love for me is not diminished (John 21:15-17).
When my sin results in His death, His love for me is not diminished (Luke 23:24).
When I reject Him, His love for me is not diminished (Luke 19:41-42).
When I am lost, His love for me is not diminished (Mark 15:5).
When my life unravels, and I crumble to my knees in desperation, His love for me is not diminished (Luke 15:24).

John the Apostle knows that Jesus loves him. He self-identifies as the one whom Jesus loves (John 13:23, 19:26, 21:7, 20). (The boldness in self-identifying as the “one whom Jesus loves”…) In his gospel account, the word or a derivative of the word “love” is recorded three times more than in all of the other gospels combined (Wikipedia indicates 57 times, my count brings me to 54). The use of this word is prolific in his other writings as well. Perhaps if my identity was firmly rooted in the love of Jesus Christ, I too would suffer compulsion to share it.

I want to know and remember that Jesus loves me. I want to self-identify as the one whom Jesus loves. As I slip into striving, transacting with my Savior to gain or become in my understanding, deserving or undeserving of His love (…talk about inadequate understanding), I find these words coming back to me, “and He loves you anyway”.

Jesus, looking at me, loves me.

Jesus, looking at you, loves you.