No Greater Love, Pt. 3

By loving one another as Jesus loved us, the world will know that we are His disciples. Our love tells others who we are.

No Greater Love, Pt. 3

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."

(John 13:34-35)

By loving one another as Jesus loved us, the world will know that we are His disciples. The world knows that we are different and we follow Jesus because they see the love we extend to one another. Agape on display is most attractive to a love-starved world. When we selflessly and inexorably dedicate ourselves to meeting one another's needs, people will notice. True love is not superficial and sentimental but sacrificial. It is, as John MacArthur stated, "the church's most powerful apologetic to the unbelieving world (John 13:35)." Another writer puts it this way: "Unity instead of rivalry, trust instead of suspicion, obedience instead of self-assertion must rule the disciples' common labors." (Merrill Tenney, Expositor's Bible Commentary, p. 153)

Jesus said, "as I have loved you." How did Jesus love? He loved by giving His life in total submission to the Father, and that love took Him all the way to the cross where He literally bled and died for the sins of the world. "Amazing love, how can it be, that Thou my God should die for me?" Jesus told the disciples then and us today that the highest, most sublime form of love is when someone literally lays down his life for another (John 15:13). Earlier, in John 10:18, Jesus said, "No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father."

Francis Chan's book, Crazy Love, details this kind of amazing love God has for us and how we are to lavish this love on others. One of my favorite parts of the book is where he documents people who have loved others in selfless, sacrificial, and agape kind of ways. He writes about a man named Rings in downtown Ocean Beach, California. Rings is an ex-convict, ex-addict, and former alcoholic. Rings lives in his pickup truck and goes to the homeless on the beach and prepares meals for them. Chan writes, "While preparing the food, Rings tells the gathering crowd about the freedom that Jesus brought into his life. He tells them that God is the One who told him to feed others with his money, and that it's because God loves each of them. This man gives everything he has to others—literally everything—because he knows he has nothing that wasn't given to him by God." (Chan, Crazy Love, p. 155-56)

What act of love will you do today that will cause a watching world to know that you are a disciple of Jesus? Ask God for opportunities to love others by serving them. He will guide you in wonderful ways. There is so much need in the world today. Most live their lives looking out only for themselves. Today, let us go and live like Jesus and love like Jesus.