Jesus loves me.

This I know.

For the Bible tells me so. . .

These familiar lines first appeared in a novel by Susan Warner in 1860. Originally penned as a poem, they were spoken to comfort a dying child.

Most of us know these phrases as a childhood hymn, which they later became thanks to Susan’s younger sister Anna. A sweet melody reminding us of both the reality and the truth of Christ’s love for us.

Yes, Jesus loves me and you. His love is real and true and pure. The Bible reminds us over and over again.

While Jesus patiently awaits His Bride, the Church, we are the ones left love-sick for Him. We are the ones living with the sacred tug between the “already” and the “not yet”. We are the recovering saints from the sickness of sin. We are ever seeking for a way to satisfy our love-sick souls only to find again and again that the Bridegroom is The Way.

We are His love-sick Bride.

Yet His church also includes the sin-sick. We are the ones living with the tug of war between the spiritual forces of good and evil. We are the not yet recovering addicts from the sickness of coveting and idolatry. We are ever seeking for a way to satisfy our sin-sick souls only to find again and again an inadequate source.

We are His sin-sick children.

The question for you today is are you sin-sick or are you love-sick for Jesus?

It’s a fair question that beckons an honest answer. You are either one or the other. The good news is Jesus loves us both. His love heals us both. Both types of “sickness” require a Savior.

The difference between a love-sick soul and a sin-sick soul is the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.

I recently read a devotion by Christine Wyrtzen in which she wrote, “Nothing defeats evil faster than a love-sick bride.” If you are love-sick for Jesus today, consider it a blessing. You have a presence and a power within you that hungers and thirsts as it conquers and overcomes.

If you are sin-sick for Jesus today, consider it a blessing. Remember the poem “Jesus Loves Me” was written to comfort a dying child. Let today be the day of your salvation and the promise of everlasting life. Trade in your sin-sick soul for a love-sick soul who, by faith, lives in hopeful anticipation of Love Himself.

The story of Susan and her younger sister, is a wonderful example of the church. God used sisters in life and in Christ to pen the words that began with a fictional character in a novel and later echoed exponentially into the homes and hearts of His children for generations.

Jesus loves me, this I know because once I was sin-sick, but now I am love-sick for Him. Once I was lost, but now I’m found.

Without Jesus, we are dying children in need of a Savior. With Jesus, we are given spiritual life in mortal bodies who move and breath and have our being to the pulse of His unfailing love.

As Paul so eloquently states in Romans 8, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Because “nothing defeats evil faster than a love-sick bride.”