Lovest thou Me?

John 21:15
Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these?

As we read God’s Word, it is important to pay attention not only to what is being said, but also when God says it. When God speaks, the timing of His holy word is not randomly chosen but rather carefully selected for the moment. Certainly, whenever Jesus said something, we can be sure He said exactly the right thing at exactly the right time.

In today’s verse, Jesus is sitting on a quiet shoreline after preparing a fish dinner for His disciples, and He chooses this moment to ask Peter the question, “lovest thou me?” It does not appear from Scripture that Jesus ever asked this question before, and it is interesting that He waits until the last the last chapter of John before posing it to the outspoken disciple. By this time, Peter had seen Christ’s miracles, witnessed the crucifixion, experienced personal failure, and was now eating with the risen Savior. When I last read this chapter, I began to think about why Jesus chose this time to ask him if He loved Him.

When Jesus first met Peter in Mark chapter 1, he asked him to simply “come after me”. It was not until He and Peter had spent much time together, and He would shortly ascend back to heaven that He asked him, “lovest thou me?” He could not have asked that question in Mark 1, for Peter barely knew Him. At that time, He only asked the disciple to follow Him.

In our lives it is the same. We do not truly love the Lord until we follow Him. When we first gets saved, everything is new. We do not really love God, because we have just begun our relationship. However, if we seriously follow Him, we will learn to love Him along the way. As we walk daily in God’s Word and prayer, building a relationship with Him, facing life together, we will in time develop true love for the Savior.

Today, make an honest assessment of your heart and ask yourself if you sincerely love the Lord. If you cannot say with assuredness that you have a rich relationship with God, let me encourage you to commit first to following Him. If we sincerely follow the Lord and develop a daily relationship with Him, just like Peter, we will surely develop a deeper love along the way.