In John 13:34, we read Jesus’ words, “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.” So many times we seem to forget this. Notice He said a new COMMANDMENT I give you. It’s not optional – it’s a command! We can go through all of the motions and different actions of the Christian life, but if we don’t have love for God and others in our hearts and in our actions, they are meaningless.
Look at what Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”
In John 15:12, Jesus reconfirms this, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” And notice, the “AS I HAVE LOVED YOU”…it can’t be just a love like the world has, where they claim to love until someone does something they don’t like, or they claim to love until it costs them something. In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul again describes the love that we are to have, “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it his not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-8)
Like everything else in the true Christian life, that seems impossible. And it is impossible without a right relationship with Jesus Christ. However, through Him and His strength we can love others as He loved us!