³⁴ 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.  ³⁵ By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."  John 13:34-35

Love is the main thing.  It is the main thing of being a disciple of Jesus.  Disciples of Jesus love one another.  Disciples of Jesus love people who don’t know Jesus yet.  Disciples of Jesus even love their enemies. That’s the theory; no, that’s the commandment. It’s the main thing.  There are other important things to think about as a Christian, but nothing more important once we have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.  The life of a disciple is a life of love.  Does it ever feel like a distant goal to you?  Does it ever seem like something you’ve made optional?  Is it a fleeting goal: moments of love instead of a life of love?  These are all reasons to focus more intently on this commandment.

I like to keep it simple.  Love one another is simple.  Love one another and you cover a whole lot of bases.  Do that well, and you will have followed Christ well.  I want to relate some other thoughts on the topic, because it sounds too good to be true, or too difficult to accomplish.  But at the end of the day, it really is that simple.  Of course, that makes this commandment annoying and difficult, because it is really not easy to love like that.

Here are some things to think about:

Love is a verb not a feeling.

While I think the best love I have for another is love that is both coming from deep within me, and then followed up with actions, love is a verb and not a feeling.  Jesus did not command us to feel something for one another.  When our communion with Jesus is at its richest, no doubt we might look at another Christian- or a neighbor or even an enemy - and both feel and think, “Jesus loves me so richly, and he commands me to love them. I’m going to do it”.   Sometimes my heart is a mess, and other emotions are at play, perhaps anger, hurt, frustration - you fill in the blanks.  I still have to figure out how to love that person, defined by those words in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7: Love is patient, love is kind…and on it goes from there.  Love is a way of interacting with people defined in the Bible by certain adjectives.  Feelings are important as they are a diagnostic of our deep desires, but love is not a feeling alone.

Love is not the same as nice.

There is a culture of niceness today, and I’m a part of it.  “You can’t say that; it’s not nice”.  The sense today is that Jesus wants us to be nice.  If we offend anyone, we aren’t nice, and therefore, not loving.

Jesus was loving by the Biblical definition, but was often bold, and not nice.  Read the gospels and you’ll find him confronting sin with a confidence and boldness that isn’t nice by our cultural definitions.  Even after dealing with sinners gently, He is often heard saying, “Go and sin no more.”  That’s not nice.  That might have hurt their feelings.  But it was loving.

If a person is making a wreck of things in their life, there often isn’t a nice way of saying, "You are a wreck; you need to straighten up.  I’m here to help, but I’m not here to enable you.”  That is loving, but it isn’t nice.  It is patient and kind, but not nice.

Love is the most inconvenient of truths.

The command to love is simple and easy to understand.  It is nearly impossible and very inconvenient.  There are many people in my life that are easy to love.  I don’t struggle wanting to be forbearing with them in their difficulties.  Other people push my buttons, and often expose my angry heart.  They keep me repenting before the Lord of my brokenness, and seeking His cleansing grace and power.  Those people aren’t easy for me to love.  Why don’t they just straighten up and fly right?  What is their problem?  You probably can give me a hearty AMEN!

Here is the problem: not only am I given a pass on loving the unlovely, I am especially commanded to love them.  After all, if I am to love my enemies, how much more am I to love people in the family of God who are irritating and unlovable to me? Look at these words:

(Luke 6:32-33 ESV) ³² "If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.  ³³ And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.”

The mark of God’s grace is not our love for those who love us well, and are easy to love for us.  The mark of the Father’s touch in our life is the ability to love those who are difficult to love.  Show patience and forbearance with those people, and the life of God in your soul is most obvious.

Love is nearly impossible.

So, the commandment is simple and plain.  And it is just about impossible.  About the only way I can think of doing it is by pursuing the closest relationship with Jesus Christ I can figure out how to have.  Along those lines, if I can begin to grasp God’s great love for me in Jesus Christ, and so be filled to the fullness of God, I can begin to see that love flow out of me to others.  I can’t do it by using my planning software.  I can’t put it on a goal sheet and determine to do it (though some acts of love can be planned).  Something has to happen inside me to cause me to love those for whom no love is present by nature.  Only by grace can I love those people.

Following Easter, we will spend six weeks on this topic during our sermons.  That is, on the one hand, a long time to talk about loving one another.  On the other hand, it’s not nearly enough.  May the Lord meet us and mold us into a people of love.

In Him,

Don