What Does It Mean to Love Like Jesus?
Welcome back friends! After that controversial, but critical post about politics, I’m excited to answer this question. It’s our second post based on a question submitted by my friend Shell Giermann! Thanks to Shell, a few weeks ago we covered, How Can I Witness About God When He Lets Innocent People Suffer?
Remember, if you also want to submit a question like Shell did, head over to our contact page. We love getting questions from you, our readers!
Enter Jesus
Let’s go right to the Son of Man Himself.
This is My commandment: that you love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than this: that a man lay down his life for his friends.
-John 15:12-13 MEV
See, now that wasn’t hard to understand. Just lay down your life for your friends and you’re loving like Jesus. I guess I could just stop here, but perhaps Shell, and maybe you, already knew this verse.
In case you’re interested, I busted out my new Bible commentary, a much-appreciated Christmas gift, and here’s what it said about John 15:13-14:
“The most a person can do for his friend is to die for him; such a death is a clear demonstration of love. Jesus demonstrated His love (v. 12b) by dying for His friends, those who obey Him. Abraham was called God’s ‘friend’ (2 Chron. 20:7, Isa. 41:8) because he obeyed God. Like close friends, Abraham and God communicated well with each other (cf. Gen. 18:17).”
There ya go. It says the same thing. Go ahead and die for your friends and you’re loving like Jesus.
But then again, perhaps we should fill in some context and flesh this out.
What Was Jesus Talking About?
A great article I learned about recently applies nicely here. The article, Never Read a Bible Verse, by Greg Koukl can help Jesus followers to understand the meaning of biblical passages more accurately. The gist of the article is simple (although I highly recommend reading the whole thing as the examples are very valuable), we should never read just a single Bible verse. We should, at minimum, read the entire paragraph. Why? Because the meaning can be completely lost or misrepresented if we fail to consider the context of the verse. Now, how does this apply to our question about loving like Jesus? Well, to really get the full meaning of the words of Jesus, we should look at the verses in John just before Jesus tells us about laying down our lives for our friends.
In John 15 Jesus begins by letting us know that He is the true Vine and that the Father is the gardener. Any branch that doesn’t bear fruit is cut off, while every branch that does bear fruit is pruned to bear even more fruit. He then tells us, “Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me,” (John 15:4 NIV). He is the Vine; we are the branches, and we must remain in Him to bear fruit and not be thrown in the fire and burned. Without Jesus we can do nothing. And it glorifies the Father when we bear much fruit, it is in fact, proof of our discipleship.
After all this Jesus says:
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.”
-John 15:9-12 NIV
Finally, the very next verse is the one about a love so strong that a person would lay down their life for their friends.
You may be thinking right now, “Why did Troy share all of this detail?” Here is the answer to that question. Loving like Jesus requires a How before a What.
A How Before a What? Wait, What?
Shell’s question was, “What does it mean to love like Jesus?” It’s a very important question, especially since Jesus showed us His love over and over, finally culminating in His death and resurrection. In addition, He commanded us to love like He loved.
But the problem is this, we cannot love like Jesus. We lack the capacity to show the completely selfless love that Jesus showed us. We are selfish, tired, hungry, jealous, weak people. So, what does it mean to love like Jesus? It means first having the power to love like Jesus did.
Let me ask a different question. How was Jesus able to love like Jesus? You know the answer. He was Jesus! Of course He could love like Jesus!! But now let’s return to the earlier verses…and why we need the context.
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.”
-John 15:9-12 NIV (emphasis added).
Jesus was able to love the way He did because of His relationship to the Father. He kept the commands of the Father and through His obedience remained in the Father’s love. How then do we acquire the capacity to love like Jesus? How? Let’s go back just a little further in the chapter.
“Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”
-John 15:4-5 NIV
The how to loving like Jesus is that we must remain in Him! Without remaining in Him we can do nothing. Yes, He commanded us to love one another. Yes, He called us friends. But, and don’t miss this, we are only His friends if we obey Him! And remaining in Him is the first step, before anything else, of obedience.
It’s not about us mustering up the strength to squelch our selfish tendencies so we can fake the love of Jesus by doing things He would do. It’s not about begrudgingly making ourselves do acts of kindness. NO!
We can only love like Jesus when it is Jesus who is the Source of the love, and He is the Source when we remain in Him.
What Does it Mean to Love Like Jesus, Really?
Here is the answer to the question. And it may not be what you expected when you first saw the question. We love like Jesus when we are constantly filled with the love of Jesus.
I could give you a list of things you can do that from the outside look like the way Jesus loves. It would be easy to put together a nice set of bullet points. But I won’t…because you probably already know them all. Let’s not kid around here. You know exactly what people who love like Jesus do. How do you know?
Because, if you’ve been a sincere Jesus follower more than a couple of years you’ve seen many biblical examples of loving like Jesus. You’ve heard stories from pastors, missionaries, in Christian books, videos, and on podcasts. You already know what people who love like Jesus do. And you know what else? If you’re a sincere Jesus follower, you really should do those things too. You show your love by your actions, not just your words.
But actually loving like Jesus? It’s never about what you should do. It’s about what you want to do. And that doesn’t come from your actions. It comes from your heart. Or, more correctly, it comes from the heart of Jesus inside of you. It comes from the fact that the Holy Spirit is living in you. It’s not only about what we do, Jesus follower, but also about why we do it. It’s about Who empowers and encourages us to love like Jesus. Truly loving like Jesus can only come from the Holy Spirit within us.
The Final Word
Oh, the intent of the original question may have been “What are the practical things we can DO to love like Jesus?” But we don’t need a list of things to do or not do. Not at all. What do we need? We need a divine Counselor.
You see, loving like Jesus isn’t loving like Jesus if it doesn’t start with us remaining in Him. Everything we do comes from the fact that He is the vine, and we are the branches.
What then, finally, does it mean to love like Jesus? It means hearing His voice as we move throughout or daily lives. And then it means doing what He leads us to do. As friends of Jesus, by virtue of doing what He commands, we remain in His love.
Yes, there are many practical actions to show that we love like Jesus. And we learn what they are from Him. Hear me Jesus follower. Don’t worry about whether doing “this thing” or “that thing” more of an example of “loving like Jesus.”
It’s very simple. When you feel any sort of inclination to encourage or serve another person in a godly way, and you obey it, that’s loving like Jesus. Don’t overthink the urges from the Holy Spirit. If you do you risk missing many opportunities to love like Jesus. But by obeying and loving, you glorify the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Love you all!
-Troy
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