Do you love Jesus Christ? Are you sure?
Lord, I would follow thee
Hi everyone! Today’s post, like “Jesus wants me for a … lawyer?” is adapted from a talk (basically a sermon from lay membership) I gave to my church congregation recently.
If you’re new around here: I’m a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This deeply informs my thinking/writing, but I only write directly about it occasionally. Like today!
Feel free to skip if religious/devotional writing isn’t your thing. But if you’re open to some scriptural reflection, I hope you enjoy this humble exploration of Peter’s journey.
(All scripture links point to the King James Version on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.)
Do you love Jesus Christ?
About two thousand years ago, near the Sea of Galilee, a man asked himself that question. It shouldn’t have been hard for him to answer—of course he loved Jesus. He had followed him for years, seen his mercy and miracles firsthand, and even adored him in his resurrected and glorified state. He loved Jesus, he was his Lord.
But his Lord had recently asked him the question: “lovest thou me?” And when he answered, “Yea Lord, thou knowest that I love thee,” Jesus hadn’t seemed satisfied, because he asked him the same question a second time. Maybe the man had felt defensive—why was he asking again? Didn’t he know he loved him? And he said so. But then Christ had asked a third time: “lovest thou me?” That third time pierced his heart.1
Just days earlier, he had promised Christ: “Though all men shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended.” But that same night, amidst the horrors of Christ’s crucifixion at the hands of his people, he had heard himself say, “I know not the man,” once, then twice, then three times. And when the rooster crowed, he had wept bitterly.2
Now, Peter was sitting across from the resurrected Jesus, and he was questioning his love—once, then twice, then three times. The scriptures tell us that Peter was “grieved” as he responded again, maybe now with a question in his own heart—“thou knowest that I love thee.”3
“Feed my sheep,” Jesus had said, and that was that.
So now, with Christ ascended, this man must have asked himself: do you love Jesus Christ? Are you sure?
The man, of course, was Simon Peter. We know him as the rock upon which Christ built his church, an angelic emissary in the preexistence, and a restorer of the Melchizedek priesthood to Joseph Smith. But it’s unlikely Peter truly understood all this—his incredible destiny—at this point in his journey. Most likely, he simply saw himself as a friend of Christ, the Son of the Living God—and one whose loyalty had been called into question. How could he show it?
“Feed my sheep,” Christ had said. Maybe that was the lesson. Maybe loving the Savior meant more than feeling affection, or following him when it was safe and easy. I recently I took my daughter to her first movie at a theater to watch that cinematic masterpiece, Dog Man, in which an innocent and good-hearted kitten named Lil’ Petey says: “Love isn’t something you feel, it’s something you do.” Maybe that idea was starting to work its way into Peter’s heart, though probably in Aramaic or Greek or something.
Maybe Peter knelt in a quiet knoll as the sun began to set over Judea and offered up a humble prayer like this:
Savior, may I learn to love thee,
Walk the path that thou hast shown,
Pause to help and lift another,
Finding strength beyond my own.
For those unfamiliar, this is the first verse of a beloved hymn in our church, called “Lord, I Would Follow Thee.” It’s a beautiful blueprint for someone who seeks to love the Savior. The very first lines of it teach us the first step in loving him: Walking the path that he has shown.
Peter would have understood this well. He was with the Savior at the Last Supper when he taught one of the simplest and most profound lessons in all of scripture: “If ye love me, keep my commandments.”5 When it comes to loving our Savior, obedience to him is the first principle.
Obedience. Maybe this thought kept Peter awake under the stars in ancient Israel. Jesus gave so many commandments. Where to start? In that moment, maybe the Spirit called to his mind Jesus’s interaction with the lawyer who was trying to test him.
36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38 This is the first and great commandment.
Well, loving God was precisely what Peter was trying to do, after all. But what else had he said?
39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.6
Love thy neighbor, Peter thinks as he drifts to sleep. The second principle of loving the Savior. First, obedience, and second, loving your neighbor. Perhaps he offered up this prayer:
Savior, may I love my brother
As I know thou lovest me,
Find in thee my strength, my beacon,
For thy servant I would be.
Savior, may I love my brother—
Lord, I would follow thee.7
Maybe in his dreams, Peter remembered his Lord. How tenderly he would walk among the poor, the sinners, the cursed, and the outcast. How confidently and effortlessly he would heal their maladies and forgive their sins when they showed even a small amount of faith in him. Like the paralyzed man, brought to Jesus. Christ forgave his sins and then said, “Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house.” And that’s exactly what that man, stricken for years, had done. Just like that.8
One imagines Peter waking up the next morning eager to seek his Lord in his House. So he goes with his friend, John, to the temple. There, he finds a man who had been afflicted by a disability. This man would be carried each day to the gate of the temple to beg for money.
In a past life, Peter might have looked askance at this person at the lowest rung of society. He may have even previously believed that his affliction was due to some personal or familial sin. But as Christ’s disciple, he knew better. Jesus had taught that affliction was not always the result of sin, saying of a blind man: “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.”9
And besides—Peter was not perfect. Not even close. Whatever sin this man might have committed, could it have compared to denying the Savior in his hour of need? Perhaps Peter reflected in his heart:
Who am I to judge another
When I walk imperfectly?
In the quiet heart is hidden
Sorrow that the eye can’t see.
Who am I to judge another?
Lord, I would follow thee.10
The lame man didn’t know the depths of Peter’s pain or regret, nor could Peter know the magnitude of the burden carried by this man. A third principle, Peter realizes, of loving his Savior: leaving judgment to the Lord. First, obedience; second, loving your neighbor; third, leaving judgment to the Lord.
Fastening his eyes upon this poor man, Peter is suddenly flooded with inspiration and power. Seeing that this man is keeping his eyes on the ground in submission and humility, Peter says: “Look on us.” The man looks up, hoping for a few coins that might mean he’ll eat breakfast that day. And Peter hears himself say;
And Peter takes him by the right hand, and lifts him up: and immediately the man’s feet and ankle bones receive strength.
And he leaps up to stand, and walks, and enters with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God.11
And maybe the Spirit whispered these words into Peter’s heart:
I would be my brother’s keeper;
I would learn the healer’s art.
To the wounded and the weary
I would show a gentle heart.
I would be my brother’s keeper—
Lord, I would follow thee.12
Peter’s fourth principle of loving Jesus: ministering and healing those in need. First: obedience; second, loving thy neighbor; third, leaving judgment to the Lord; fourth, ministering and healing those in need.
Maybe in that moment, worshipping in the temple with the man whom his Lord’s power had healed, Peter achieved a greater understanding of why Jesus asked him that question three times. Christ had known that Peter loved him; he knew it all along—even in his denials. But now it was Peter’s turn to know that what it meant to love the Lord—and how to spend his life showing that love.
Because love for Christ isn’t just something you feel, it’s something you do. It’s obedience. It’s loving your neighbor. It’s refraining from judgment. It’s ministering to the downtrodden. It’s walking in the footsteps of the Savior. That’s what it means to feed his sheep.
Come, follow me,13 Christ says. Lord, I would follow thee, we respond.
When Christ asks us, “lovest thou me,” how will we answer?
We are all like Peter. We love the Lord, but we walk imperfectly. We have regrets and sorrows that the eye can’t see. Like Peter, we all need strength beyond our own. Like Peter, we can learn to be obedient to Jesus’s commandments and walk the path he has shown. Like Peter, we can learn to love our brother, refrain from judgment, and learn the healer’s art. And like Peter, if we do these things, we prepare ourselves for a destiny greater than we can possibly imagine.
Like Peter, I love Jesus Christ. And so I pray: May I learn to love him.
Lord, I would follow thee.
John 21:15-17
Matthew 26:33; 69-75
John 21:17
“Lord, I Would Follow Thee,” Hymns, no. 220. Text: Susan Evans McCloud; Music: K. Newell Dayley.
John 14:15
Matthew 22:36-40
“Lord, I Would Follow Thee,” McCloud
Matthew 9:2-6
John 9:3
“Lord, I Would Follow Thee,” McCloud
Acts 3:1-8
“Lord, I Would Follow Thee,” McCloud
Luke 18:22
Beautiful! I really like the way that you centered the piece on love for God and then let other ethics unfold naturally from there.
It’s inspiring to see another writer I respect publicly sharing a part of him that’s so personal and essential.
Also, God is working in very cool ways - I have a post queued up for Tuesday where I also talk about “love thy neighbor” but from a multi faith perspective.