#37 Love one another as I loved you

Read John 13:31-38

โ€œ34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.โ€

When Jesus teaches us to love others it is always in the context of His personal love towards us and His historical sacrifice for us all.

If His love for us is a guide for our own lives of love, itโ€™s worth taking time to contemplate, โ€œHow has Jesus loved me?โ€ For some, his forgiveness of their sin is what first comes to mind. Others are overwhelmed that Jesus has promised to be present with them in every situation. Take a few minutes now to write a list of the specific ways you believe he has loved you. If you have yet to meet Jesus or feel like he hasnโ€™t met your expectations, Iโ€™d encourage you to attempt even a short, tentative list of what you know to be good and true about Jesus.

Once youโ€™ve compiled a list of how Jesus has loved you, compile a second list of what you have done to deserve His love. Take time to think it through. Once thatโ€™s done, compare the lists. If youโ€™re like most of us, one list will be much longer than the other! Clearly, Christ has loved us in more ways than we loved him. When considering what we have done for him, even the most heroic Jesus-follower couldnโ€™t declare that theyโ€™d loved enough to earn or deserve Jesusโ€™ love.

Jesusโ€™ willingness to give us undeserved love isnโ€™t intended to simply humble us. Rather, his list is a visual guide for us to love others just as he has loved us. 

As you aim to love others like Jesus models, you may be tempted to pause or give up entirely, when their reciprocity is lacking.  In the same way that Jesusโ€™ love towards us is far greater than our love for him, we should expect that when we follow his example, the outcomes may be similar. We may compile a long list of loving actions to others while their reciprocal list remains quite short. You may even find yourself asking questions like, โ€œWhy bother continuing to love someone who ignores me?โ€ Or, โ€œThey act like they deserve this! Theyโ€™re so ungrateful!โ€

While we should avoid situations where people reject us entirely or are actively mistreating us, itโ€™s entirely normal for a follower of Jesus to love others more than they are being loved in return. In fact, Jesus understands this practice of loving other followers disproportionately as central to his strategy of reaching every nation with his gospel message. He says that if we learn to love each other like him, โ€œall people will knowโ€ who we belong to and why it is that we love so deeply.

When people observe how you interact with other Christians, do they sense your deep, God-given love for them? Do they see that you have been taught by Jesus how much God loves them?