As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another. (John 15:9-17)
Jesus’ conclusion at the end of the passage sums up His main concern. “These things I command you, so that you will love one another.” This theme also comes through loud and clear in verse 12. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” Everything He says in verses 9-17 is aimed toward making us that kind of people.
Now the word love has a wide range of meaning. If you gave this command to a group of hippies, how do you think they would interpret it? Probably very differently from what Jesus has in mind. But Jesus doesn't leave us to guess the kind of love He means. 'Love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends.'
Jesus died for us, bearing the punishment for our sins in our place, so that we would be made right with God and receive eternal life through Him. There is no greater display of love. But that love is not only our salvation; it is also our model.
The love Jesus commands us to have for one another is a sacrificial love; a giving love; a love that looks to the interests of others and reaches out sacrificially to help. We obviously cannot die as an atonement for sin like Jesus did, but we can give of our time, energy, money and lives for the good of others. Jesus says, “Love one another as I have loved you.”
Jesus doesn’t just leave us with a command. This kind of love is hard. So in the following devotions we will explore five encouragements designed by Jesus to help us love one another.
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you”
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