Fearlessly Courageous
Desk of Dennis Piller
3 3 2025

Audio Version

Beyond Casual Love: The Commitment That Matters Most

I think, Loving God is to live at a level beyond logical comprehension—how is that even possible? How can we love God more than we love our families, more than a perfectly innocent infant in our arms? We hold their life in our hands, yet God holds our every breath in His.

We often declare, without hesitation, that we would die for our children. But Jesus asks a more radical question: Would you live for me?

“What is the first and great commandment?” Jesus answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.” (Matthew 22:37-38) And then He follows with a difficult truth: “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.”
(Matthew 10:37)

Who is “Me”? Jesus.

When Jesus stood before the religious leaders of His day, He made it clear: “If God were your Father, you would love me.” (John 8:42) What a hard word!  They claimed to know God, yet they did not love Jesus. And in John 5:42-43, He rebukes them again: “I know you don’t have the love of God in you. I have come in my Father’s name, and you don’t receive me.”

There is no wiggle room here. You cannot love God without loving Jesus. That applies to all who claim to know God yet do not receive the Son.

But how do we love this way? What does it look like? Sound like? Feel like?

Consider your children. You love them unconditionally, with a value beyond measure. Priceless. So How Do You Love?  What does it look like?  Sound like?  Feel like?  Your Children…How do you love them?  What is unconditionally, worth? Billions…priceless…each of them is a treasure beyond measure.   But God, is saying…His word is declaring, that IF Jesus isn’t a bigger treasure, then, You…Me… we… are not worthy of Jesus the Savior. 

How do we even wrap our minds around such a command? How do you love someone
—anyone—who demands it?

Jesus gives the answer: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (John 14:15) Love, as the world defines it, has been diluted into something casual, convenient, and often empty. “I love football and buffalo wings.” “I love your new haircut.” “Love ya, man!” Words tossed around without depth, without weight.

The nature of love is: “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:8).  How many people do you know who define their love that way?

Perhaps a better question and certainly a more personal one?:  What is your threshold of Love? 
And/Or do you love at different levels?
And do you even know what they are?

I love you, used to be the three most sacred words that were reserved for the closest, dearest and the most deeply, unconditionally, loved of ALL the people in our world.  But now?  Do I even need to say?  It has become so casual, that it is handed out to acquaintances, unless they are a coworker.  I know, it’s become a way of expressing warmth, camaraderie.  The digital age is alive and well in all our faces and in most all of our “I Love You’s”. It certainly doesn’t  even legitimize a relationship today let alone express what I love you used to mean.  I would rather you just say you trust me.  I love you has become so watered down, what should an I love You to Jesus mean to us?  Do we even wonder why it means too little to too many?

But true love—the love Jesus calls us to—is costly. It is action. It is sacrifice. Faith without works is dead (James 2:17), and love without works is equally empty.

At the end of the day, love without commitment is like a car without gas—it may look fine on the surface, but it’s not going anywhere. Jesus didn’t just speak love; He lived it. He proved it. He laid down His life for us while we were yet sinners (Romans 5:8). That is the standard of love we are called to.

John Piper put it this way:
“Where does love come from? It comes from being stunned by being loved by God, overwhelmed by the person of Jesus dying on our behalf and rising again, though we have no merit at all. When that grips you, then you will taste what it is to treasure Jesus, delight in Jesus, and be satisfied in Jesus.”

Loving God beyond logical comprehension happens when we grasp the incomprehensible love, He has already shown us. When Jesus becomes our supreme treasure, everything else falls into its proper place. Our love for our families, our children, our closest relationships—all of it is deepened and purified when Jesus is first. Not replaced. But rightly ordered.

This is what it means to be worthy of Jesus—not that we could ever deserve Him, but that we would “be transformed” by the Holy Spirit He sent, to love Him above all else. Because when He is our greatest love, we truly belong to Him.

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Love Like This / No One Like You (Spontaneous) / Break Every Chain // The Belonging Co