This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
John 15:12
This is my commandment…
We are told here plainly that loving others is not optional. That in fact it is a commandment of God. We are told elsewhere in John that if we love God we will keep his commandments (John 14:15). We can’t love God, if we aren’t loving his people. There is no way around it, for the Christian loving other people is not optional. Lest we think we are only to love the people of God, Jesus sets the bar awful high when he tells us in the Sermon on the Mount that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. Ouch! We have no problem looking out for number one. So much so, that Jesus says, “hey care for people around you like you care for yourself.” And if we do that, doing to others like we would do for us, we would be loving those people. Loving God’s people and everyone else is a commandment.
Okay, so loving people is not an option if we want to be a follower of Christ. But in a culture where the definition of love is as clear as swamp water, this can seem like an overwhelming task. What does Jesus mean by love? What does loving one another look like? All it takes is a short scroll down a random person’s social media feed to find all kinds of opinions on love, and Jesus, for that matter! Rarely are they based on scripture, or if they are, they usually have been bloodily plucked from their immediate context and the teachings of scripture as a whole (ah-uhm… coffee cup theology). Hence this blog name and Brance’s (you guys, I am not the brain in this outfit :), humble attempt to salvage the name. I really am living proof, though, that every person, even the most unlikely, is meant to be a theologian, a student of God. That, folks, is the main purpose of this blog; to help other people see that for themselves. Sorry for the digression. Back to swamps and poor exegesis in regards to love…
I am not quite sure why, but I am always astounded to hear people say that Jesus says or the bible teaches that love is x or y, when x or y stand in complete opposition to Jesus and his word. It really, truly is heartbreaking that a person, especially one who claims to be a Christian, would be so confused and deceived about something explicitly laid out for us in God’s word and would attempt to deceive others. But regardless of how men, both sinners and saints (yes, if you have been born again, you are a saint!), would twist or misunderstand the meaning of love, God’s commandment still stands firm. We are to love one another (brothers and sisters in Christ), we are to love our neighbors (all the people whose lives touch our lives), AND in case that list isn’t inclusive enough, we are to love our ENEMIES according to Jesus in Matthew 5 (I don’t think you need me to explain who THOSE people are).
…that you love one another…
So we know that loving others, especially the family of God, is not optional. If we love Jesus, we must love all people, even our enemies. Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit in his letter to the Corinthians, does an amazing job of teaching us the shape of love. Chapter 13 is the famous “love chapter” that is quoted at so many weddings (yes, it was included at Brance and I’s wedding!) and while it certainly applies to the marriage relationship (especially, if husband and wife are believers), here Paul is particularly addressing what the love of brothers and sisters in the Body of Christ should look like. Lest we continue in confusion in regards to love, here under holy inspiration, Paul defines love for us!
It really helped me to look at what love is/does and what love is not/does not from that passage; so I will list them out for you.
Love is/does
-patient
-kind
-rejoices with truth
-bears all things
-believes all things
-hopes all things
-endures all things
Love is not/does not
-envy
-boast
-arrogant
-rude
-insist on its own way (aka. selfish)
-irritable
-resentful
-rejoice in wrong doings
-end
When a brother or sister in Christ is difficult to be around, or is struggling, or is slow to get a particular truth, our response to them is to be one of patience and kindness. We are to love. When a friend or co-worker receives or has something that we would like to have, we rejoice for them. Our response is to be one of love. When we are in a large or small group and we do not make ourselves the center of attention or insist that everything goes the way we want it to, we are loving others. We have the correct answer or understand how something works? We realize that, out of love, sometimes it is better to remain silent because we do not need the affirmation of men. We are not arrogant; we do not use people to stroke our own ego, instead we love them. We are not rude and selfish and grumpy. For when we are on the receiving end, we are quick to recognize that is not loving. We do not hold a grudge when we feel we have been wronged. We leave it to God to be sorted out in his timing. We love. We do not rejoice when people do evil things, because there is no evil in God. When we do NOT celebrate the evil things that people do, we are in fact loving those people. Because of love we are able to bear, believe, hope, and endure all things. All things! Because God is love and has poured his love into us, his children, we can know that love never ends, because God never ends!
…as I have loved you.
You may be looking at the list from 1 Corinthians 13 and the following paragraph and think, “yeah, like never.” But the amazing thing is that we work with the power that Christ works in us. It is because of Christ’s life and sacrificial death on the cross on our behalf that we can even slightly come close to living this kind of amazing, world changing love out in our daily lives. This is a humble, not flashy, true, pure “kinda” love. Not only is he the one that empowers us to live this out, he is the inspiration behind it! “…as I have loved you.” Jesus loved us more than we can imagine when he allowed himself to be nailed to the tree and be the recipient of God’s wrath against the sin of mankind. I heard an amazing song recently that portrayed the agony Christ endured in the Garden of Gethsemane leading up to the Crucifixion, knowing all that he was about to suffer. It was so incredibly moving. It made that desperately sad scene in history come alive for me. Our savior, broken under the weight of knowing what he would have to endure for us, said yes to God’s will. He loved you and me with the most selfless and sacrificial love ever displayed in the history of the world. How is that for some motivation!?
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