In 1 John 4:19, John writes that “We love because He first loved us” (NIV). What a beautiful promise and truth this is! This is “Good News” that we as followers of Jesus Christ need to receive and to live. We love one another (or should) through the love that is Jesus Christ!

However, our world continues to bombard us with the ways of the world: money, power, revenge, hate. These gods continue to lead many of us, as well as our nation and our world, astray. Jesus must be getting tired of all our sin.

God offers to us the right way, the only way: Jesus is the Way! Jesus is enough. The world fills us with the desire to store up riches for ourselves. These riches lead us away from the One who is, who was, and who shall always be (Revelation 1:8b).

Jesus is enough–so simple but so profound and so hard to grasp. We don’t need the things of this world; we need Jesus (1 Corinthians 7:31). The more we trust in the Gift of Jesus, the more we reflect the true love of Jesus to the world around us.

One of my favorite hymns of our faith is “Trust And Obey.” As with many of our hymns, too often we sing the words without reflecting upon their meaning. Do we truly “trust” and “obey” our Lord Jesus Christ? Do we choose to hear and to believe the words we are singing? Do we choose to live in such a way as to reflect our obedience to Christ? “Trust and obey, for there’s no other way/to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey” (Towner, D. B. and J. H. Sammis).

Jesus loves us! Is that not amazing? Do we believe what Jesus says? Do we trust His Word to us: “For God so loves the world…” (John 3:16). For God so loves You! This is so amazing, so profound! Do we trust in that promise or are we consumed by putting our trust in the world and all the money, power, and greed it constantly holds out to us? We need to “Trust (in Jesus) and Obey (His Way) for there is no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to Trust and Obey.”

As I have been journeying through a major illness, I have been challenged to reassess where I am placing my priorities and in whom and where am I placing my trust.

What and, more importantly, to whom do my actions point? Am I choosing to obey the only Lord and Savior I need, Jesus the Christ?

In this personal, retrospective journey, I have become content to trust in Christ. I have worked hard with His help to lay aside the ways of this world. A dear cousin of mine reminded me “to have faith and trust in Him for all the Graces and strength you need.” Following that advice and allowing the words of “Trust and Obey” to take hold of my heart, I am happy to say that I am “happy in Jesus.” I am choosing to trust in Him and to proclaim that “God is good! All the time!”

As Jesus has chosen to love us, may we choose to live in the aura of that love as we choose to love one another in His Name. May it be so in this hurting world.

Pastor Bob Wallace, retired UMC minister