Do You Show Love?
“By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” (John 13:35)
“Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” (1 John 3:16)
By what do men know that we are His disciples (John 13:35)? It is by our love one toward another. Love is the means by which men know we are Jesus' disciples. By what then do we know the love of God? By this we perceive, or we know, the love of God. By what? Because He laid down His life for us. And we ought to love the brethren, or we ought to lay down our life for the brethren (1 John 3:16). There is no greater love. Say what you will, but there is no greater love than this.
“This is my commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you.” (John 15:12)
“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13)
John 15:12 says, "This is my commandment, that ye love one another..." Most people stop right there. They say we should love one another, but the verse reads on: "as I have loved you." You don't just love, but you love "as I have loved you..." You don't just love, but you love "as He loved" or by His method. What was Jesus' method of love? We don't have to turn to another book of the Bible to find the answer. We don't even have to turn to another chapter to find His method of love. In fact, if we stay within the context of the scripture, we will find in the very next verse the answer we are looking for. Jesus said to love as He loved in verse 12. In verse 13 He states, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." Why settle for a lesser love?
Some people actually judge a church according to the lesser love instead of greater love. If everyone isn't smiling and overly considerate or if the sermon wasn't a compassionate, loving message, then some people won't come back to that church because they do not have the kind of love they are seeking. We preach the cross, which means destruction to the flesh, but what a message of love, for through that same death we were brought into the Eternal Life of the Son. The flesh seeks love that will pet it and say all will be alright. God's love didn't have compassion on the flesh, but took it straight to the cross that it might be destroyed. And yet, the laid-down life of God’s Son died for something so much greater than to touch our flesh, but to make us one spirit with Himself. You can't know the love of God by compassion and acts of emotion, but by a laid-down life. According to Ephesians 3:19, we can only truly know that love experientially by being filled with the Life of the Son: “And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.”
The disciples could have all gone home to live their own lives and just write love letters to one another, but this wasn't the love Jesus asked them to carry on. Jesus could have just come to earth and told us how much He and the Father loved us, that they were praying for us and then gone immediately back to heaven and not given His life. However, this kind of love would have done us little good.
Too many Christians are labeling displays of affection as the love of God and as the love we are commissioned to continue in. This wouldn't be so bad except most of these Christians are not laying down their lives for the brethren. Many will hug and tell you how much they love you, but the moment you offend them they choose to withhold the tender mercies of the Son from covering you. Instead of laying themselves down to build a bridge, they stand against you because of the wrong done and form a breach in the body of Christ. Beloved, let us love one another, even as He loved us! If Christ had withheld His mercy from us when we were dead in sin, we would all be under eternal judgement from God. Instead of going by the knowledge of good and evil, Jesus became sin and died for His enemies. This same love, His love, is now shed abroad in our heart by the Holy Spirt -- “because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us” (Romans 5:5).
“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice...” (Romans 12:1a)
The scripture tells us to present our bodies (many) as one living sacrifice. We are His Body meant to show forth His life. We may claim we live by His Life together as His Body, but spend the majority of the week caught up in our own lives, seeking to further our own private ambitions. We may stand in church and testify, "I would be happy just to be a doormat in the house of God," but the first time someone wipes their feet on us we throw a fit. When men spat in Jesus' face, He still loved; when they pierced His side, He said, "Father forgive them"; when He could have called ten thousand angels, He didn't, for He loved, and showed it by laying down His life.
His love goes beyond “deeds of kindness” to a corporate oneness in the mind and spirit of the Lamb. More than just “getting along” we are to manifest His sacrificial nature to the world. We are His Body that bears His life, a life that always lays itself down for others. He is our life, not a programmed response when people mistreat us. The Spirit of the Son in His Lamb nature is to permeate how we relate with one another by His indwelling spirit. When people see a people loving one another in this manner, they will see Jesus in a real way. May we walk in love, as Christ loved us, laying our lives down for one another.
“Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour.” (Ephesians 5:1-2)
