Somehow, the word “love” describes our affection for grandma, our enjoyment of pizza, the physical act of intimacy, and a bunch of other things that we definitely do NOT “love” in the same way. So, we should not automatically assume we know what Jesus meant when He said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another” (Jn. 13:34). Fortunately, God will not leave us in the dark for anything that important. Jesus went on to explain, “just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (Jn. 13:34).
The way Jesus loved – which His disciples saw, heard, and experienced as they followed Him each day – is the standard. Loving like Jesus is our proactive choice, not just an emotional reaction to how someone makes us feel. Because He taught that “loving our neighbors” includes actively caring for everyone around us, even our enemies – we do (cf. Matt. 5:43-46, Lk. 10:25-37). When He looked at a rich young man, loved him, and then told him to give all his stuff away, He also showed us love means wanting what is truly, eternally good for others and not just what momentarily feels good (cf. Mk. 10:17-22). Love motivated everything He ever did, all the way to the cross: “when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end” (Jn. 13:1).
The Apostle Paul had a gift for summing all this up. He saw love as the way to fulfill everything God taught in the Bible (cf. Rom. 13:8-10). When he described love as the “more excellent way” and “the greatest of these”, he did not limit it to a passing feeling but a choice we make to be kind, to not envy or boast, to not be arrogant or rude, and more (1 Cor. 12:31-13:13). Recognizing love as Christ’s motivation for dying for us “while we were still sinners”, Paul knew love had to be his purpose in life, too (Rom. 5:6-11). Discipling Timothy in the way of Christ, Paul wrote, “The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith” (1 Tim. 1:5).
Jesus said that loving like Him is the mark of a true disciple: “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). So, how do we love? If we truly follow Jesus, then it cannot just be according to the world’s muddled definitions: we must learn from Jesus how to love like Jesus.
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