In his devotional volume, To Be Near Unto God, Abraham Kuyper writes that early Christianity differed from the philosophy of Greece and Rome, which fixated on certain abstract ideals, because of its attachment to a person. The Apostles, he says, demonstrated 'a passionate love for the living Christ, the tangible Image of the living God.' He continues,

It is this personal attachment of faith to the living Christ in very Person, in which the secret of their power consisted. It was a love of heart to heart, by which the world of that age was won. It was love and affection for the Mediator between God and man...

When St Thomas kneels down and exclaims: 'My Lord and my God!' there reveals itself all the power of the personal worship of God in Christ by which the Church of Christ became what it is.

But Kuyper observed in his time that this was being lost again, that the focus was shifting towards abstract ideals,  the attributes of God and the good things he offers us, rather than on the person of Christ himself. 'Admiration of the ideal,' Kuyper writes, 'breaks down the faith.'

This is now the complaint of the Lord is Asaph's song (Psalm 81:11): 'They would have none of me.' They love my creation, they enjoy the world which I called into being, they admire the wisdom which I made to shine as light in the darkness, they dote on love and mercy, the feeling for which I made glow in their heart; but Me they abandon, Me they pass by, of Me they have no thought, to Me they give no personal love of their heart, with Me they seek no fellowship, Me they do not know; my personal converse does not interest them; they have everything that is mine, but they would have none of me.

What Kuyper observed in his day is no less true in ours. We must remember, then, that the greatest commandment, given in Deuteronomy 6:5, and repeated by Jesus in the Gospels (Matt. 22:37; Mark 12:30; Luke 10:27), is to 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.' Our whole being is to be filled with love for God, for the personal and loving Father who desires intimate fellowship with his children.

It is easy to love the ideals of God, as Kuyper calls them. His love, justice, mercy – these are all incredible things that amaze us, and that we ought to praise God for. But perhaps we tend to love those things more than the person of Jesus because his love and mercy in and of themselves do not place a demand on our lives. Jesus does. He rules over us as Lord and King and demands total surrender.

But the beauty of following him and giving our lives to him is that we get the love and mercy and grace, but we get it from the person who loved us so much that he laid down his life for us. It is to him that we owe all or love and adoration. Without him, none of those good things exist.