Love As...

John 15

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” John 15:12

Until this moment, Jesus hasn’t given us many rules to follow. He hasn’t given us much in the way of a code of ethics or things we can or cannot do. It seems that He has spent most of the time healing people and teaching that He has come from The Father. So here it is - His first command. “Love one another”.

It’s an odd command. It would be easier would it not, to have some other kind of instruction? Wash your hands before you eat. Don’t wear hats ‘in church’. Love one another. It is well beyond the scope of a one page letter to describe the kind of love He wants us to have for each other, but fortunately He described the kind of love He meant and it is this, “as I have loved you.”

So how did Jesus love His disciples? Did He love them the way the world thinks of the word? Certainly not. In our world, we have been convinced that loving a person involves approving of whatever it is they do, so long as their actions aren’t criminal or something. (and sometimes even then) His love was not that kind. Here are a couple of things that His love was...

A Sacrificial Love

His kind of love was a life laid down for His friends. It is well and good to have happy and pleasant thoughts towards those around us, yet it is not the type of love He is commanding for His people. He is speaking these words on the very cusp of His death, the example being that our love for each other is meant to be a sacrificial love. Real love lays down it’s time, its finances and on occasion, even its life.

A Faithful Love

Two chapters earlier we read this, “...having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.” John 13:1 Faithfulness goes beyond, “not cheating on your spouse’. It actually has much more to do with showing constant support or loyalty. This isn’t an intellectual study. A faithful friend is someone who sticks with you.

These are what are supposed to characterize believers, a faithful/sacrificial love. If you are on the outside of faith, I know you don’t always see that in us. I am sorry for that. I wish I could fix it. I will confess here and now that we just aren’t that faithful to each other. It takes very little for our own to move on to the “church down the street”. We leave each other when we don’t like the new pastor, get frustrated with how the youth ministry is organized, bad decisions from leadership or even the style of music they play on a Sunday morning. We don’t have to be faithful in North America, because we can just follow Jesus in our own way, or we can usually find another group of believers who will be happy to take us in.

I know the church falls far short of what we are called, but if something about His command seems right, would you give us a chance?