Imagine someone says to their spouse, “I love you.” But they never listen to them. They ignore the things that matter to them. They consistently disregard their wishes. After a while, those words start to ring hollow. Because real love doesn’t stay hidden in words. Real love shows up in actions.

We understand this instinctively. When someone claims to love another person but their life consistently contradicts that claim, we begin to question whether the love is real.

The same kind of question confronts us when we come to John 14.

I don’t know of any Christians who would say they don’t love Jesus. We sing about loving him. We talk about loving him. We believe that loving Jesus is the right and proper response to who he is and what he has done.

But that raises a searching question for all of us: Do we truly love Jesus?