In the previous post we looked at something that Jesus said to his disciples shortly before his arrest:
“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.” (John 13:34)
The new commandment wasn’t that his disciples should love, because Jesus had already talked to them about the importance of loving one another. The part of the commandment that made it new was that his disciples were to love each other just as Jesus had loved them. That’s a high standard.
I’m pretty sure I can’t love other people as Jesus loves me. Maybe I can love some people that way, but not everybody. I can think of a few people who are really hard to love. Surely God doesn’t expect me to have a Jesus love for the person who pulls out in front of me and then drives 5 miles per hour below the speed limit. Does Jesus really expect his followers to love each other the way he loves us?
Yes.
Jesus didn’t say, “Here’s an idea I’d like to run by you guys.” He said, “a new commandment I give to you.”
The apostle John, who was sitting there with Jesus that night, wrote this some fifty years later:
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. (1 John 4:7-8)
I think that night with Jesus was on John’s mind when he wrote that. As believers, we’re commanded to love one another, but not with just any love. Lots of people can love. Millions of people who don’t know God still love. But God calls us to a different kind of love, a love that’s beyond our ability, a love “from God,” who is the source and the beginning of all love. Jesus is telling us to love with a supernatural love.
We can’t do that out of obligation or obedience. We can only have that kind of love because we are God’s children, and God is love. Love is part of his nature, it’s who he is. His Holy Spirit is within us, so love is no longer what we do, it’s who we are.
This supernatural love of God that we have for others is what assures us that we are believers, that we’ve been born of God. The closer we are in our walk with God, the better we know him and live surrendered to him, the more we will love his enemies with a supernatural love, a love that those who don’t know him can’t explain.
Every person you see is someone God loves and sent his son to give his life for. Every. Single. Person. Your boss, the president, your mailman, your doctor, the store clerk, the waitress. The people who are actively working in support of a different political party than yours. We’re called to love them all.
What should that love look like?
In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:9-10)
Supernatural love looks like the love of God, who loves us so much that he sent his Son to suffer and die for us, his enemies. Before you became a Christian, you weren’t indifferent to God. The Bible teaches that those who don’t know him are his enemies (Romans 5:10). When we were still enemies of God, he loved us enough to save us. That’s the way we are to love others, with that kind of supernatural, sacrificial love.
Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. (1 John 4:11-12)
What John is saying is that no one sees God, but they do see us! When we surrender our lives to God and allow him to shape us and mold us into becoming more and more like him, people will see God in us and be drawn to him.
If we’re truly allowing God to live through us, people will look at us and marvel. If Christians around the world loved as Jesus loves – people would be amazed. People would want to know what it is that makes us different. God would use us to reach people who right now are his enemies.
Of course, not everyone you love is going to turn to Christ and change their lifestyle and worldview:
Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. (1 John 3:13)
Jesus told a famous story about a farmer sowing seeds (Matthew 13:1-9), and only a quarter of those seeds produced grain. If you stand up for Jesus and his truth, not everyone around you will turn to Jesus. You will face persecution of some kind. Love them anyway. Forgive them. And keep your eyes on the seeds that land in the rich soil and produced a hundred-fold! If we are faithful, God will use us.
Can you imagine what this world would be like if Jesus’s followers truly loved one another? If we truly loved our neighbors as much as we love ourselves? If we saw the people around us, both Christians and non-Christians, friends and enemies, with God’s eyes?
Here’s the bottom line: If you truly want to make a difference as you live for God in a godless world, then stand up for truth, and allow Jesus to live through you in such a way that you love the way he loves.
We must stand firm against sin and immorality no matter what the cost, but we’re not called to beat people over the head with the Bible. Have compassion for them, instead of hating them. Serve them. Pray for them. Offer to pray with them when possible.
Don’t argue with people. If you want to use social media as a platform to present truth in love, go for it. But if you can’t be on social media without arguing, get off. It isn’t your job to convince people that they’re wrong. That’s the job of the Holy Spirit, and he’s much better at it than we are.
Accept people without condoning their behavior. State your convictions without compromise, and do so with a loving, humble heart. Present the truth, while loving them.
And when they attack you (and if you’re living for God, people will attack you), choose to love them anyway, the way Jesus loves them. The way Jesus loves you.