“So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are My disciples.”
John 13:34-35
“This is My commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you.” John 15:12
I was reading through John the other day and I came across John 13:34-35. I remembered these verses, in fact, they’re some of my favorites. But while I’ve noticed and appreciated the first part, my attention is usually more drawn to the last part of the verses. I love the idea of outsiders being able to tell we are Christ followers by the genuine and different way that we love one another…that’s incredible! I’ve been in situations where that has been true and it was amazing to be a part of. But this time as I read these verses I got stuck on what Jesus says before that sentence. On what kind of love we are to love those around us with that makes the watching world turn their heads. It’s in the same way He has loved us! Are you kidding me?! THAT’S how the world will know that we belong to Him?! And to top it off, He doesn’t just say it once, He repeats Himself a couple of chapters later and says the same thing again…love each other in the same way I have loved you.
These two verses say the same thing. Jesus is calling us, and not only that but, expecting us to love one another in the same way and just like He has loved us. That’s a very high standard of love right there. And what’s even more interesting is that in both places, it’s not a suggestion….love like I loved you if you want to be a super Christian or get some brownie points with Me….no, it’s a command. Now Jesus doesn’t give us a lot of commands in the New Testament, so when He does, you know it’s important. But we can see that this command is not only important for us to follow, it’s impossible for us to follow as well. It’s completely and utterly out of our reach to attain. We can’t do it! We can’t even get anywhere near it. But I think that’s the point.
Jesus is only able to love us the way that He does because He is God and His “Godness” was mixed with His ”humanness” and so He was able to love perfectly here on earth as an example to us all. Now, because of the Holy Spirit, we have the Spirit of God mixing with our humanness at all times, enabling us to have the opportunity to love the same.
Jesus wouldn’t have told us multiple times to love like He does if it wasn’t possible….through Him. That’s the key. It has to be through Him that we love anybody at all, in anyway. Period. Any kind of love we can’t do on our own…let alone the kind of intense, passionate, selfless love that He has loved us with. We have to have Him to love. I love that He puts the standard so high. Any kind of pure, healthy love is out of our reach anyways, but to bump up the level of love to what we have and are continually being shown by Christ makes the impossible even more unattainable. We can’t “happen” to get it right. It can’t be an accident. If we get anywhere close to loving like He does, we have to know that it is Him though us giving us that love. We can’t become proud or boastful about it because we should know by now that we are incapable of it on our own.
So, it’s an impossible command to live out…but it’s a doable command because of who lives in us. I would love to love the way He showed us how. And through Him, I can.
