Read: Jn. 15:12–17
We use the word love for an impressive number of things. We love our spouses, our kids, our friends, pizza, chocolate chip cookies, Steven Curtis Chapman, and that magical moment when somebody cancels the meeting we didn’t want to go to anyway. So when Christianity tells us to love, it will help us to know exactly what that word means.
As our friends “Foreigner” have been known to sing, “I wanna know what love is.” But instead of getting into the Greek definition of Agape and the fact that it’s used over 200 times in the New Testament, let’s look at how Jesus defines it. He said: “As I have loved you, so also you must love one another.” Christian love is not whatever emotion we happen to associate with the word, or what culture tells us love is. It is not simply being pleasant, avoiding disagreement, or pretending that everything everyone does is fine. Love looks like Jesus. Interestingly enough, foreigner almost got it right. “I wanna know what love is, I want you to show me.”
Jesus moved toward people. He served them, listened to them, told them the truth, forgave them, showed compassion, and was remarkably patient with people who seemed determined not to understand what He was saying. Ultimately, He completely gave Himself away. His love was sacrificial, costly, and directed toward the good of the other person.
Sunday we talked about love being load-bearing Christianity. This is why it’s load-bearing. Love is not decorative niceness added onto an otherwise complete Christian life. It is one of the primary ways the life of Christ begins taking shape in us, and that means it will eventually cost us something. It may cost us time, comfort, pride, convenience, or the right to always get our way.
So my challenge for today is this, when you’re wrestling with something that involves another person, pause long enough to ask: What would it look like to love this person the way Christ has loved me? Not, “What would make this easiest?” Not even, “What would make them happiest?” The question is what Christlike love would seek for them. It might mean going to the meeting you didn’t want to go to, AND being engaged during it.
That’s why foreign ALMOST got it right. Right would have been, “I want you to know what love is, and I’m going to show you.” Jesus’s questions is harder than Foreigners because it requires something form us first. What would it look like to love this person the way Christ has loved me is a much harder question, which is probably why Jesus gave us Himself as the definition.