To Love Him is the Indispensable Requirement, Ying Ying Lee

Mark 12:30 says, “And you shall love the Lord your God from your whole heart and from your whole soul and from your whole mind and from your whole strength.” Growing up in a Christian home, I knew that loving the Lord was of utmost importance and that I should tell Him that I loved Him. However, in my senior year of high school, I was struck with the disconcerting realization that in my mind I knew that I should love the Lord. With my mouth I would say that I loved the Lord, but in my heart I just didn't love Him. I told the Lord many times that I wanted to say, “Lord Jesus, I love You” and really mean it, but it seemed that He either didn't hear my prayer or He simply wasn't real and I was just talking into thin air.

In high school, I had been active in student government and in my senior year became student body president. At UCLA, however, I was one insignificant freshman amid 35,000 other students. For the first time in a long time, I felt really lonely and intimidated by what lay ahead of me. My pride was broken; I was broken. That's when the Lord stepped in. Starting from my very first day at UCLA, the Lord began His work to change this lukewarm, disheartened semi-believer into a seeking Christian who now truly loves Him.

How did He do this? The Lord made me realize that I couldn't make it on my own. I needed Him and I needed other Christians. Every Friday night, I attended meetings in homes of local church members. These meetings consisted of about ten people and we gathered to eat dinner, sing hymns, read a portion from the Bible, and fellowship about our experiences of the Lord in the past week. Through these meetings and regular contact with devoted, seeking Christians, I began to get to know the Lord in a very real way. His presence was sweet and strong and my experiences of Him were frequent and so enjoyable. Halfway through my first quarter, I remember sitting at the dinner table on Friday night, choked up, as I recounted the distinguishing mark of my talk with the Lord the previous evening. I said, “Lord Jesus, I love You,” and I meant it for the first time in my life.

Witness Lee once wrote, “To fear God, to worship God, and to believe in God are all inadequate; to love Him is the indispensable requirement.” This quote is really my experience. Loving the Lord has brought me into a deeper personal relationship with my Lord. Mere objective worship and reverence is not what is on God's heart, rather God wants someone to love Him. Things we cannot even imagine have been prepared for those who love Him. 1 Corinthians 2:9 says, “Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard and which have not come up in man's heart, things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” Lord Jesus, I loveYou!