How Do I Love Thee...

When Elizabeth Barrett Browning penned these words to her husband Robert Browning, it was a shout of joy and love and thankfulness because he had rescued her from a life of
loneliness and gloom as she was practically a prisoner in her father’s house. She answers that question in the sonnet but it is equally a question for us about our relationship with the Father and the Son. How do we love Jesus?

Well, I do sing that song, “O How I Love Jesus!” or “Here I am to worship, …you’re altogether lovely, worthy, wonderful to me.” You see, our words do come easy and, too often, find little expression in our deeds or our daily walk with Christ. Do I pray often thanking him for his many blessings? Am I trying always and in every way to really think and act as Christ did? Do I really try to put aside my own wishes, plans, or dreams and think of ways to serve others? Do I ever really feel almost ready to cry with great emotion because I am overwhelmed with joy that he “loved me and gave himself for me?”

Jesus’ parable of the two debtors in Luke 7:41-42 asks this very question and the parable cannot be read or understood emotionally and spiritually unless we see the event that caused Jesus to tell us this story. Read the “Rest of the Story” in verses 36-50. This sinful woman washed Jesus’ feet, cried over him, and anointed his feet with ointment. Simon the Pharisee was untouched by this woman’s obvious love. And just as evident, was his own lack of love for the Master. In speaking to Simon, Jesus gives us the final word on loving Him: he loves little who is forgiven little.

Elizabeth Browning answered it this way:

I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! And if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

Like the sinful woman at Simon’s house, we must see ourselves clearly: “My sins are so great! I am so unworthy!” But wonder of all wonders, “He loved me and gave himself for me!
O, How I love Jesus! Sweetest name I know!

—Hugh Price