Loving Jesus: The Neglected Key to Experiencing the Depths of Christ

By Lloyd David Elcock

"If any man come to me and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple."

-Luke 14:26

Christians do not love Jesus enough! Indeed, based on his observation of this matter for over fifty years as a born-again Christian, the author has conclude

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trilogy Christian Publishing
• Release date: Jun 7, 2021
• ISBN: 9781647738853

Book preview

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Loving

Jesus

THE NEGLECTED KEY TO EXPERIENCING

THE DEPTHS OF CHRIST

Book One in the Series

What the Gentiles Have Done with Christianity

Lloyd David Elcock

Trilogy Christian Publishers

A Wholly Owned Subsidiary of Trinity Broadcasting Network

2442 Michelle Drive, Tustin, CA 92780

Copyright © 2021 by Lloyd David Elcock

[e-mail]

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, taken from The Holy Bible, King James Version (KJV). Cambridge Edition: 1769.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Trilogy Christian Publishing Rights Department, 2442 Michelle Drive, Tustin, CA 92780.

Trilogy Christian Publishing/ TBN and colophon are trademarks of Trinity Broadcasting Network. For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Trilogy Christian Publishing.

Manufactured in the United States of America

Trilogy Disclaimer: The views and content expressed in this book are those of the author and may not necessarily reflect the views and doctrine of Trilogy Christian Publishing or the Trinity Broadcasting Network.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-1-64773-884-6

ISBN 978-1-64773-885-3 (ebook)

Contents

Author’s Preface

Foreword

The Restoration of Biblical Christianity

David’s Story

Jewish Christianity and Gentile Christianity

Because He First Loved Us

Loving Jesus: Part I

The Supremacy and Centrality of Christ

Loving Jesus: Part II

Loving Jesus: Covenantal Obedience

Loving Jesus: Wifely Obedience

Loving Jesus More and More

The Unique Importance of John Chapter 14

Final Word on Loving Jesus

Brief Glossary and Commentary

Suggested Reading

What advantage then hath the Jew? … Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of god.

—Rom. 3:1–2

Is He the god of the Jews only? Is He not also of the gentiles? Yes, of the gentiles also.

—Rom. 3:29

For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying,

"I have set thee to be a light of the gentiles,

that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth."

—Acts 13:47

Be it known

therefore unto you

that the salvation of God is sent unto the gentiles and that they will hear it.

—Acts 28: 28

Author’s Preface

The Origination of this Volume

This book started its life as just one chapter (albeit a lengthy one), of the first of what I had expected to be three or more very much larger books that the Lord commissioned me to write a decade and a half ago on the subject of Gentile Christianity. However, in the course of preparing them, I discovered that what I had intended to write as individual chapters, or in some cases individual sections, of those three or more books, were really intended by my Master to be part of a series of relatively shorter volumes, all under the rubric What the Gentiles Have Done with Christianity.

I have been working on this project for the past fifteen years, and had planned to complete the first work more than a decade ago. In point of fact, I actually began writing its preface in the autumn of 1993 in a hotel room on the edge of the Sea of Galilee, during a tour of Israel. For obvious reasons, I felt that given the title and subject matter of the proposed book, there could hardly have been a more propitious location for such an endeavor, However, that initiative proved to be premature, and I continued my research and other preparatory work until the year 2000, when work on the manuscript began in earnest. The Lord facilitated this by bringing back from a foreign land, Phyllis, a dear sister and a family friend from our teenage days, who just happened to be most eminently qualified in every spiritual and technical respect to do the necessary work on the text. She wasted no time in coming to grips with the huge mass of rough manuscript material that I had assembled over the previous twelve years, and with matchless skill, dedication, and diligence, was able in quick time, to reduce it to the basic elements of a rudimentary draft manuscript. However, due in large measure to the professional demands of my duties as a superior court judge, I was not able to take the work much further for another three years.

A Prophetic and

Providential Option

Nevertheless, by God’s grace, I recently found myself imbued with a renewed enthusiasm and an irresistible zeal that have been propelling forward the work on the (by the then, still intended) first of the larger books at an almost furious pace. Then in the midst of this great onward rush, I felt strongly led to begin my life as a published author, not with that long-planned larger book, but rather with a much smaller one; a book based on just one chapter of that larger book. And that particular chapter just happens to be the single most important chapter of that book. The prophetic appropriateness of its choice, and I would like to believe, the providence of it, are demonstrated by the following paragraph from the (originally intended) chapter of that larger book that bears the same name as this book:

This is the most important chapter of this book; nay, this chapter is the book; it is the Alpha and Omega, the be all and end all of the book; without it, this book would be just another pedestrian offering of orthodox evangelical theology; but without any other chapter but this one, this book would still be complete, and its object still achieved. This is really holy ground; and you will need to take off your spiritual sandals before traversing its landscape.

Six Principal Objectives

It is my most sincere hope and prayer that after you shall have completed the reading of this book, dear reader, six things will result: firstly, that you will have become convinced in the depths of your heart and spirit, as I became after many years of a superficial love for Him, that loving Jesus as He requires us to, is the one and only secret of the successful Christian life; secondly, you will similarly realize that your love for Him has always been, in the words of the old hymn (quoted on a later page): weak and faint; thirdly, you will find yourself compelled under conviction by the Holy Spirit, to fall upon your knees and repent of having come so far short of His glory in this the most vital area of your Christian life; and fifthly, you will purpose in your heart, setting your face like a flint (Is. 50:7), to devote every single hour of every single day of the rest of your life, to loving the Lord Jesus, your God, with all of your heart, and with all of your soul, and with all of your mind, and with all of your strength.

There is a sixth result which I devoutly desire; it is one that does not require the hopes or prayers of anyone for its fulfillment: Jesus Himself will be so exceedingly overjoyed and delighted by your new-found love for Him, that He will respond without delay, by showering upon you the blessings of His abiding, ever-increasing, manifested presence, just as He has promised to do in John 14:21–23.

Foreword

I have read the manuscript of Loving Jesus, the author’s first volume of his proposed series of expositions under the general title: What the Gentiles Have Done to Christianity with great pleasure and interest, and I find that in addition to his spiritual insight, the author’s scholarly and legal backgrounds are at once evident, reflected as they are in his incisive and analytical treatment of his subject matter.

At the heart of his thesis is the proposition that we the Body of Christ have abandoned our first love (as enunciated by John in Revelation 2:4) and that God is calling us back to a loving, spiritual intimacy with our Lord. It is this love for Jesus that is at once the foundation and final destination of our Christianity.

The unique appeal of this volume lies in its intent to lead the believer away from perceiving Christian communion and service as mere dutiful drudgery, and to see them rather as the outworking and outpouring of a heartfelt, personal, self-sacrificing love for Jesus. This is the paradigm shift, it argues, that is needed to restore that spark of life, that fire of passion to both our personal walk and our public worship.

The book you are about to read could revolutionize your own personal Christian experience, equip you to function more effectively in your local church, and release you to minister more meaningfully to the wider body of Christ. Its contents range widely from historical perspective to exegetical endeavors and practical procedures for seeking and apprehending the one person, who is the grand theme of all inspired Scripture: the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

I celebrate with my friend Lloyd Elcock the signal achievement of the release of this his first published book, and look forward to many more thought-provoking sequels from his agile mind and eloquent pen.

—Michael McDowell, ThD

Rapha Revival Ministries

The Restoration of

Biblical Christianity

A Lost Spiritual Weapon Recovered

Sometime in or about the late 1960s, the body of Christ received from the Lord a massive therapeutic shot in the arm; or (to change the metaphor), the church of Christ rediscovered a powerful ancient spiritual asset. It is an almighty spiritual weapon that is openly and liberally advertised in the pages of both the Old and the New Testaments, but nevertheless has been overlooked and ignored for centuries by God’s New Testament church. This almighty spiritual weapon is none other than the power of praise!

I am not sure exactly how and by whom this mighty spiritual weapon was recovered and returned to the body of Christ, but what is certain is that it was given worldwide exposure by a book entitled Prison to Praise, written by Merlin Carothers and published in 1970. This inspired work reveals the Bible’s clear teaching that God requires His children to render unto Him praises and thanksgiving for all things good or bad, and in all circumstances, favorable or adverse. Moreover, the book is filled with living examples and illustrations of God’s favorable responses to the praises of His children, especially when we praise Him in and for every trial or tribulation or adversity.

The recovery of this spiritual weapon has had the most stupendous effect upon the lives of multitudes of Christians all over this planet; many millions of souls have come to realize that God’s blessings often come to us disguised as problems, trials, and tribulations, and have accordingly learned to respond to them when they occur, not with tears of sorrow or despair and self-pity, but with genuine, effusive praises and thanksgiving to God for allowing those adversities to befall them, fully confident that He always causes all things to work together for good to them that love God (Rom. 8:28). One illustration of the book’s success is the fact that there are in print today, more than ten million copies of Prison to Praise. A second such illustration is provided by case histories of multitudes of men and women who have used the weapon of praising God to achieve marvelous victories, and astonishing successes in overcoming every kind of enemy and adversity. Their testimonies have been published in later books written by Carothers, Don Gosset, and other authors including Answers to Praise, Power in Praise, and Praise Works.

I am sure that like myself, millions of Christians have wondered how we could have