If you know me, you know I’m a man in love. Deeply. In. Love.

My wife is, quite simply, the perfect human being for me. I’m convinced that God custom-made this woman to fill in and complement every one of my shortcomings–and there are many. I’m completely and forever in love with her. If you know her, you see clearly that we are a matched set.

Lest you think I’m about to droll on and on, dripping with sap about how much I love my wife, I promise you I am not. I actually want to turn my attention to Jesus, and Him alone. And I invite you to hear the expressions of my thoughts and heart for the man I call my best friend, my Savior, my heart’s affection, and the One I choose to follow/walk with. But before I do, I believe the greatest quality my wife has is that she would absolutely want me to tell you that it’s Jesus who makes our marriage work. He’s it.

But first a quick diversion. My life revolves around ministering with young people. Ever since I was a young person myself, I have known that my life would be aimed at the young generation, and loving them well, showing them Jesus, and being available for them for…well…whatever.

Living rooms, hospital rooms, waiting rooms, courtrooms, backs of squad cars, funerals, jail cells…I’ve been everywhere seeking to love young people well.

In all honesty, I have nothing to offer any young person but Jesus. He is it. I don’t have life hacks, deep wisdom, tricks to help smooth out life’s road, or anything else. I only have and I only offer Jesus.

So you can perhaps imagine my surprise and concern when I recently found that some young people I interact with struggled to articulate much at all about who Jesus is and why they, too, love Him.

Seems like for someone who is in the context of a thriving spiritual community, such a thing should flow naturally. But it seems there’s work to do in this area. Yet, I cannot expect anything from them that I am not able and willing to do myself. So, this blog is about exercising the discipline of articulation. I’m going to articulate to you why I choose to love and more specifically, who I know Jesus to be and why I am now and–God helping me–will for all my days fix my gaze on Jesus.

If anyone from my high school days ever reads these words, I must apologize to you. I did not live as I should have lived in those days. I did not express my faith well; it was there, but it was not on display as it should have been. I hope you’ll forgive me for that. I should have been clearer. This isn’t about my upbringing as a “PK” (pastor’s kid), it isn’t about church attendance, and it isn’t about “religion.” I put no stock in any of those things.

This is about the person of Jesus: who He has been from the beginning, who He revealed Himself to be in the gospel accounts we all have access to, and who He is to me personally right now on a daily basis.

I want to do my best to paint a picture for you. I trust that then you’ll clearly see why I choose to love Him.

You can read other blog posts of mine that go into the granular details of my upbringing and my faith story. There are lots of details you can find in other writings I’ve already posted. So I won’t repeat myself in that regard.

Jesus is the fullness of God, who chose to be constrained to a human frame. God chose to become flesh in order to communicate the greatest love for humanity (that’s all of us) that He possibly could. Jesus came to us because we could never get to Him. The mission of Jesus from the very start has been to come and get us. To rescue us. To redeem us. To adopt us. To draw us back to Him, as He has desired all along.

The person of Jesus is the image of a God who would stop at nothing to have us in a loving relationship with Himself. I love Jesus because He is God, but also because He is a walking, talking, sharing, healing, and reviving God. I live and breathe at this moment because of the presence of God. This is not a poetic or romantic statement, though it is that as well. It is a statement of fact. My conviction is that I am alive because God has desired it. I am breathing and functioning because of His good grace. My whole self is wrapped up in Jesus because Jesus has shown Himself to be the author and sustainer of all I am and all I have.

Going deeper, this God has come to me personally. In the depths of my sin, He came to me in this relentless pursuit that was fueled by His love for me. Though I disregarded His love and chose to live selfishly, still He came for me and came after Me. He found me in my self-inflicted mess and invited me to be whole, to be healed, and to be changed day by day as I walk with Him. I have found no other solid ground to stand on because every other thought and belief system would be based on what I can do, and I confess that I can do nothing good on my own. If you are reading these words and you believe you are fine on your own and do not need Him, then know that while He loves you with an everlasting love, His love also gives each person their own decision to embrace Him or go on without Him. But as for me, I choose Jesus. He looked for me, He found me, He healed me (still is), He transformed me (still is), He adopted me, and He is patient with me.

I talk with Jesus. In this talking, our relationship grows stronger. That’s how relationships work. If you want to grow closer to someone, you talk to them, and you listen to them. I have become convinced that it is this ongoing conversation that gives me a healthy perspective on all other aspects of my life. Likewise, when our conversation wanes, all other aspects of my life begin to become misprioritized and mishandled. Simply put, my conversation with Jesus sets all other things in their proper place.

I choose to love Jesus not because I was given some insider information by virtue of being brought up in a Christian (let alone as a pastor’s) home. It’s not because I went to enough bible studies and learned enough information. It’s not because of some unfair advantage life handed me. No. None of that. I choose to love Jesus because He first loved me. He proved that love by painfully accepting the death that my own sin demanded. He took on my death in my place. What greater love exists than that?

I know Jesus as a friend because He continually shows me more of who He is. I enjoy a familiarity with Jesus because we have walked together for so long, but along with that comfort, there is equal part wonder and curiosity that is built into our friendship. I know that I’ll never know the depths of who Jesus is, and I revel in that mystery. I love Jesus because there is no end to what I can know of Him.

Jesus is the very embodiment of the love of God. I am drawn to belief in Him, to friendship with Him, and to journeying life’s road following Him. I honestly believe that apart from Jesus I could do and would be nothing. Again, if you are living a fine life apart from Him and believe that you are able to continue that, by all means go ahead. As for me, I’m a broken and helpless sinner in desperate need of a Savior. He is the Savior of my world. I know that for me, I am prone to decisions that are selfish and destructive. I need someone greater and higher to be Lord of my life. He is my Lord and He has given me wisdom, peace, and direction. He has saved me from devastating decisions time and again. Left to myself, I’d drive this life into a ditch or off a cliff. With Jesus in control, I have nothing to fear. With Jesus my Lord guiding me, I am free from all anxiety. That’s why I trust Him. That’s why I love Him.

What I want for you is that you would know Him, too. In fact, I’d love nothing more than for you to know Him even more than I do. Whether you or anyone else (and I know millions do) choose to love Him, I simply cannot turn away from Him. I’m far too convinced of His presence, His goodness, His faithfulness, and His grace. This is who Jesus is to me and this is why I choose to love Him.