For the child, it could be the simple verse "God is love" (1 John 4:8) explained as he sings the hymn 'Jesus Loves Me,' which says that if I love Him when I die He will take me home on high. Jesus loves me, and helps me love Him in return because He IS love!
If we wish to use only one verse to explain the necessity to love Jesus, we could quote the following, "Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love Him?" (Jas 2:5).
For one who wishes to probe more deeply into this question of the necessity to love Jesus to attain kingdom status, he will find the Bible a complete encyclopedia on the subject.
The Apostle Paul explained that Christians no longer live under slavish obedience to Jewish laws; we obey the laws to the extent that we love our Jesus. Jesus said He had "not come to abolish (the laws) but to fulfill them" (Matt 5:17 NIV). The 10 Commandments still stand, but we are no longer under the Old Testament curse of being stoned or hung on a tree when we fail to keep them. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree" (Gal 3:13 NIV). The tree was Jesus' cross. He didn't die to do away with the 10 Commandments; he died to break the curse which is rightfully ours when we fail to keep them.
Jesus did, however, make one stipulation for us to be freed from the curse. It was "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" (Matt 22:37-39). Since Jesus is God who dwells in us (John 17:23), we are commanded to love Him. This is no option, it is a commandment if we wish to be made righteous before Him with our sins forgiven, and thereby eligible to inherit eternal life!
The Apostle John writes that the only way to be an overcomer is by the word of our testimony and by Jesus' blood (Rev 12:11). When we love someone, we want to tell everyone about our wonderful friend. If we love Jesus, we will tell others how His blood has purchased our freedom and we are now "clothed in white raiment" (Rev 3:5). Overcomers are those who remain true to Jesus, who have washed their robes "and made them white in the blood of the Lamb" (Rev 7:14). We did our part to love and obey Him, and He then made us acceptable before Him. "We love Him because He first loved us" (1 John 4:19).
We now return to the verse in James. When we humble ourselves enough to admit how spiritually poor we are in relation to the rules of the 10 Commandments, we accept His forgiveness for having failed, but want to strive to keep them because we love Him. Others will know how much we love Him by the extent to which we live as He taught.
The key to eternal life, and also to high moral living, is our love for Jesus.
© 1999, Doreen Palmer