Over dinner not too long ago a friend asked me why I love Jesus so much, and I had never stopped to ask myself that. Obviously, I love Jesus because he died on the cross for my sins, because he came to earth as a human and understands everything I’m going through, because he healed me from alcoholism and changed my life.

But tonight it occurred to me that, while all those things are true, the answer is actually much more simple and profound.

I love him because he first loved me.

I love God (Jesus is God) because God first loved me. I only have the capacity to love because I was imbued with that ability by God’s love first.

Humans are a bottomless pit of want and need. Dissatisfaction is human nature. I attended the Global Leadership Summit last Summer and listened to Harvard Professor and Happiness expert Arthur C. Brooks talk about how studies have shown that it takes our brains six months to achieve homeostasis after a big life change. So, essentially, science says that if you finally get what you’ve been longing for, you’ll be bored with it within half a year.

I was blessed to coordinate the 2025 women’s retreat for my church. It’s held at a beautiful property in the Texas Hill Country and the leadership team goes out a day early so that we have time to prepare and set up. So I was there early Friday morning the weekend of the retreat and decided to go out for a run just after sunrise. It was so breathtaking out there!

It’s easy to praise God when you’re surrounded by the beauty of His creation, so as I was praising God my mind turned to the people who live and work at the retreat center who get to wake up in the splendor of God’s beauty every morning and I thought, I sure hope they appreciate this place and what a wonderful environment God has given them, but I also know enough about human nature to understand that, while they probably do wake up grateful sometimes, it’s likely they also probably take it for granted just as often. As I was musing over this aspect of human nature the Spirit said to me, Liz, that’s how it is with all my gifts. We take such joy in God’s gifts at first, but eventually the everyday graces we receive become commonplace, and we begin to take them for granted.

You only have to read the book of Ecclesiastes to realize that getting what you want doesn’t actually bring you full, complete and permanent satisfaction.

But God does.

In the Bible Jesus tells us that he is the living water that becomes within us a spring overflowing. He is the only one who can do that for us, because a bottomless pit needs infinity to fill it, and not just fill it, but bring us to a point of complete saturation, overflowing with an abundance of love. I know, you’re probably thinking, Liz, that’s a logical impossibility, a bottomless pit can’t ever overflow, but with God all things are possible.

Bottomless pit, meet infinity.

I love because He first loved me.

It is uniquely powerful when someone loves you first. When you are loved unconditionally by someone else, they show you things about yourself you never understood before. When someone loves you, they study you and know you well, and look after you in ways you didn’t realize you needed looking after.

Consider a mother’s love for her child. The baby doesn’t bring anything at all to that relationship. A baby is just a bundle of constant need, but a mother doesn’t require reciprocation from her infant to love him, she will love her baby no matter what, and she will watch him and study him and learn the sound of his cries and the movement of his arms and legs and the sparkle of his eyes and she will know what he needs and fill that need. Eventually the baby grows into a sullen teenager and the mother still doesn’t need reciprocation to love him. He may be a big ball of hormones and anger, but occasionally he will be stopped in his tracks by the way his mother loves and knows him, and she always will for as long as she lives.*

That’s how God loves us, except better, fuller, and even more sacrificially.

I love Jesus because he knew me when I was formed, he knit me together in my mother’s womb, and drew me to him as a child, and when I walked away from him as a young adult, he didn’t stop loving me, he didn’t stop pursuing me, and when I eventually returned to him he ran to me while I was still a long way off. I found myself utterly crushed under the weight of his immeasurable grace. It was a joy so intense that I can’t describe it, the kind of love that cracks your heart wide open and makes tears run down your cheeks. My father loves me no matter what. No matter what I’ve done. No matter how I’ve failed. He is the beginning and the end. He loved me first, and he will love me still at the last. Furthermore, he loves you that much, too!

The world offers us Norton Juster’s subtraction stew. In his fantasy novel, The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster writes about the adventures of Milo, a young boy tasked with restoring the princesses Rhyme and Reason to the kingdoms of Digitopolis and Dictionopolis. While eating dinner with the king of Digitopolis he was offered subtraction stew before the meal, not realizing that the more he ate the hungrier he would become.

That is what the world offers us. We can fill our lives with relationships and achievements and money and sex and fame and approval and it will all ultimately leave us feeling emptier than before. “Vapor, vapor, everything is vapor” says the writer of Ecclesiastes. God is the only one offering us something substantial. Jesus said “I am the bread of life”, Jesus called himself “living water” and said no one who drinks of him will be thirsty ever again. Jesus said “I am the way and the truth and the life”. From what I know of society today, people are desperate for truth.

If you’re desperate for truth, if you’re hungry for something real and thirsty for life everlasting, pray this prayer and ask Jesus to fill up all the empty spaces in your life:

Jesus, I desperately need you. I confess I am not enough on my own and I can’t find satisfaction from the world. Please fill me with your spirit and make me whole. I believe you are the way and the truth and the life, and I submit my life now to you.

If you do pray this, I encourage you to reach out to a Christian you know, or to a church in your area and seek guidance on baptism and growing your faith in Christ.

*I want to acknowledge that not everyone’s mother loves them this way, but rest assured that no matter how you were loved as a child, your Heavenly Father loves you the way I describe here and even more.