Chapel Speaker Emphasizes Responsibility to Love God

March 16, 2001

"'Do you love me?' is the most important question you will ever answer and it comes from God," said Dr. Greg Hunt during his March 7 chapel address at Oklahoma Baptist University.

Hunt, pastor of First Baptist Church in Norman, focused on John 21:15-22 where Jesus asks Peter three times if he loves him and then commands him to action. Hunt asked the students, "Do we really love Jesus? Do our hearts yearn for him? Do we want to walk, talk, learn, laugh and cry with him?"

Like Peter's denial of Christ during the crucifixion, Hunt said, "There is something in the way we live that leaves the question in doubt.

"If we truly love God we would do anything to please him. We would even attempt the impossible if it would bring him joy."

Christians need to realize that being in a relationship with Christ is not about rules but about love. Often Christians only act out of duty and a sense of obligation, he said.

"God first calls for us to love him," Hunt said. "It is not to make us cower but to invite us home, not to conquer us but to win our hearts."

"We must realize that when we operate in our own terms, according to our own rules, we are breaking the Father's heart," he said. "Sin is a way we betray the one who loves us."