Can You Love God Without Loving Jesus? The Question That Changes Everything

Meta Description: What's the connection between loving God and loving Jesus? Explore four questions that reveal the heart of what Jesus truly demands from us. URL Slug: love-god-love-jesus-what-jesus-demands Featured Image: A close-up of open hands holding an open Bible, warm natural light, with soft focus background — conveying intimacy, surrender, and devotion.

What if the greatest test of whether you truly love God is something most people never consider? Jesus made a claim so bold, so exclusive, that it reorients everything — and I've been sitting with it in a way that I think will challenge and encourage you deeply.

In a recent session on what Jesus demands from the world, I walked through four questions about the love Jesus calls us to. I want to share them with you here, because I believe they have the power to change the way you think about your faith.

The Relationship Between Loving God and Loving Jesus

We all know the first and greatest commandment. In Matthew 22:37, Jesus says:

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind."

And then, just a few chapters earlier in Matthew 10:37, Jesus says something that stops you in your tracks:

"Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me."

So here's the question: what's the relationship between loving God and loving Jesus? Can someone genuinely love God the Father while rejecting or diminishing Jesus?

Jesus answered that directly — and He answered it to the most religiously devoted people of His day. In John 8:42, He looked at the Pharisees and said: "If God were your Father, you would love me." And in John 5:42, He told those same leaders: "I know that you do not have the love of God within you. I have come in my Father's name, and you do not receive me."

The conclusion is unmistakable: loving Jesus is the test of whether you truly love God. You cannot separate the two. This isn't just a theological point — it's profoundly relevant in a world where many people claim to worship the same God while bypassing Jesus entirely.

The Nature of This Love — It's Deeper Than Obedience

So what does this love actually look like? Is it simply doing what Jesus commands?

Many people point to John 14:15 — "If you love me, you will keep my commandments" — and conclude that love for Jesus is essentially obedience. But that reading misses something critical. Notice what the verse actually says: if you love me, then you will keep my commandments. Loving Jesus is the deep, foundational reality. Obedience flows from it — it is not the same thing as it.

I remember reading a book in college called Situation Ethics, which argued that love cannot be an emotion because you can't command emotions. It sounded sophisticated. But it's simply wrong. The Bible is filled with commands directed at our emotions — to fear, to hope, to be grateful, to be compassionate. God has every right to command our affections.

The love Jesus is calling us to is the kind of love we have for our most precious people — our children, our parents. You don't love your children primarily by following their instructions. You treasure them. You would give everything for them. They are your delight.

That is the love Jesus demands for Himself. As Paul put it in Philippians 3:8:

"I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord."

Obedience matters — deeply. But it is the fruit of treasuring Jesus, not a substitute for it.

Where Does This Love Come From?

This is where the gospel becomes breathtakingly practical. In Luke 7, Jesus is at dinner with a Pharisee named Simon when a woman — known in the town as a sinner — enters and weeps over Jesus' feet, wiping them with her hair.

Simon is offended. Jesus responds with a simple story: two people owed debts they couldn't repay. One owed much more than the other. Both were forgiven. Which one loved the lender more? Simon answers correctly — the one forgiven more.

Then Jesus turns the story on Simon: this woman has loved much because she has been forgiven much.

This is the answer. Love for Jesus is awakened by being stunned by His love for us. When the reality of what Jesus has done — dying for people with no merit of their own, rising again in triumph — when that truly grips your heart, you begin to taste what it means to treasure Him.

We love because He first loved us. That's not a cliché. It's the engine of everything.

How Important Is This, Really?

Jesus leaves no room for ambiguity. If you love father or mother more than Him, you are not worthy of Him. If you love son or daughter more than Him, you are not worthy of Him. And Paul, in 1 Corinthians 16:22, writes with equal directness:

"If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed."

Not worthy of Jesus. Accursed. These are serious words.

But here's what I want you to hear in them — not condemnation, but clarity. What Jesus demands at the deepest level is not first a decision of the will or a set of behaviors. It is a transformation of what we treasure. When Jesus is your supreme treasure, you are exactly where you belong. Being "worthy" of Jesus doesn't mean deserving Him — none of us could ever do that. It means being the kind of person whose heart has been remade to find its home in Him.

My prayer for all of us is the same prayer I closed with on Sunday: Father, awaken love in us — because You loved us first.

If this message stirred something in you, I'd encourage you to watch the full message and share it with someone who might be asking these same questions. And if you want to go deeper with others in community, I'd love for you to find a small group where these conversations can continue.

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