John 15:12-14 12My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14You are my friends if you do what I command.”
No greater love than laying one’s life down for a friend… what can it mean “to lay one’s life down?
Could it be, that we can lay down our lives for our friends, and not even “die”? Could it be, that the most difficult way to lay down one’s life for a friend is actually to “die to self”? And that, on their behalf? For their good? And that, out of a love that prefers someone else’s well-being, welfare, ultimate good, over my own? Maybe even at the expense of my own? My own life?
This truth lies right at the route of God‘s love for us, and the divine love he has placed in our hearts by his Spirit, and the type of love he can then rightly and justly command us to demonstrate, to express, to others. And this love…
Love must be sincere - Romans 12:9-21
9Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. 10Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. 11Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. 12Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. 13Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.
14Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 15Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. 16Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.
17Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. 18If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. 20On the contrary:
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” 21Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
What is sincere love? What is love that is unfeigned?
Sincere: not a phony ("put on"), describing sincere behavior free from hidden agendas (selfish motives) – literally, "without hypocrisy" (unfeigned).
This is a distinctly Christian and or biblical word or phrase. It does not exist in secular literature in the Greek.
It is because Paul, in essence, had to make up a word that described genuine and authentic, Spirit-prompted and empowered, Jesus enacted and thus imitated, a divine love, emitting from God and His Spirit, that Jesus lived and commanded (of) His Spirit empowered siblings to be) divinely expressed - agape love
Love: love which centers in moral preference. Prefer you and your well-being over mine rights and liberties (Rom 14)
It is important that we come to recognize this truth. That God would make up a word that did not exist in humanity before to describe his love to mankind, in particular his children (Rom 5:8; Eph 3:9) and then demand of his Spirit-filled children. (Ephesians 5:1-2)
Romans 5:5 “God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”
Whose responsibility is it to love: it is mine, it is always mine. I have no control over someone else’s loving or their responses to my loving them.
Who am I responsible to love?
this is not a new question: Luke 10:25-29-37
29But he (the expert in the Law) wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
Why? Why would I ask that question?
Because only I can control what I do. And God, holds me, only, responsible for my love and loving. How someone else loves or receives or responds to my love, is none of my business. And even moreso, does not in any way permit me to then choose whether I love or not.
So, maybe we need to ask ourselves this question…
Can love be sincere, as the scriptures talk about and define sincere love, if once that love is tested, or even opposed, that that love ceases?
As for the rest of those who are or have been in our lives, it is ours, as long as it is up to us, to live at peace with them, to love them through difficulty and disagreement, even if they choose to not love in return. (Matt 5; Luke 6)
Well, what are the specifics? Is there a limit?
Another question as old as humanity’s existence. Well, what did Jesus tell Peter when Peter tried to impress Jesus with his magnanimity (bountiful display of forgiveness)? “Oh, no, 70X’s7 times”? What do we think He meant by that? (see the wicked servant)
Matthew 21-35 “21Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” 22Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.”
What is love then? If it is “patient, kind, not rude, persevering, etc.” wouldn't it be true that there is not a single one of its virtues that cannot prove themselves unless they are tested?
We must remember that the vast majority of the commands and instructions in the N.T. have to do with how Christians are to conduct themselves with one another - in other words - the epistles are the instructives and correctives in living out our proof of being Jesus’ disciples.
John 13:34-35
34“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
It is that the New Testament is an entire educational and vocational training on the “loving one another” and having that loving be a sincere act that demonstrates our being transformed and miraculously empowered to transcend our flesh and its desires to love one another as Jesus loved us - when and how Jesus loved us - to make a body, a fellowship, that declares to the world that there is a God among them, that Jesus’ death, life, and resurrection is real, that the power of the Holy Spirit does exist in us
The power of the Holy Spirit in us is not best displayed by random demonstrations of charisma, but by the consistent overcoming of our flesh and its selfish desires, the miraculous power to enable disparate people to be one in spirit, mind, and mission.
Philippians 2:1-3
“if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind”
The miraculous power of the Holy Spirit and His ability to transform lives is His ability to produce love in the hearts and lives of human beings - period. That is what will attract the lost to Jesus, it is this sincere love that testifies to Jesus’ reality, His ability, nay, His desire to save, to redeem and transform.
Philippians 2:4-7
“3Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. 5In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus. 6Who, being in very nature a God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature b of a servant...: and became obedient to death…”
When? When love is actually - patient and kind. And…
Love is sincere when love has come through all, every, and each of these thresholds, and (this) love actually, and really, perseveres…
1Corinthians 13
1If I speak in the tongues a of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, b but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
So again, we must ask ourselves…
John 15:12-14
12My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14You are my friends if you do what I command.”
