The Love of God Is Self-sacrificing

  

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34 – 35). 

 

“This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one that this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:12 – 13).

 

“We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” (1 John 3:16).

 

Is this love the hallmark of our lives? Of my life? Of your life?

 

Is this love the hallmark of our congregations and of the professing church?

 

We are called and commanded to love as Jesus loved. There are no excuses for us not living and loving as Jesus Christ.

 

Well now, are we obeying this commandment?

 

We must obey this commandment, for Jesus says, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (John 14:15). Also, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him. He who does not love Me does not keep my words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me” (John 14:23 – 24).

 

If we are not keeping Christ’s great and new commandment, how can we keep His other commandments? If we are not keeping that great identifying – commandment, by which others will know that we are His disciples, how can we truly keep His other commandments?

 

You say, “How can we keep such a commandment?” Jesus says, “By abiding in Me.”

 

“Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me” (John 15:4).

 

Does our love for others stop short of laying down its life? Then we are not obeying Jesus Christ. The hallmark of God’s love for us (John 3:16), and of our love for others, is the Cross, it is self-sacrifice.

 

Dear, dear friends, self-sacrificing love as a way of life is so radical that the world cannot help but take notice when it sees it. The world may be attracted to it, or the world may try to destroy it, but the world cannot ignore it.

 

This is another example of God’s love having form, substance, and definition. God’s love is defined by self-sacrifice, by the Cross. Referring back to Philippians 1:9 – 11 in previous posts, can there be anything more excellent than the self-sacrificing love of God? Anything falling short of this self-sacrificing love as a way of life falls short of the excellence of our calling and the beauty of our koinonia in the Trinity.

 

Dear friends, how caught up we get in the signs of the times and prophecy, desiring to have our curiosity satisfied concerning present and future events. Consider that it is the self-sacrificing Lamb of God (Rev. 5:6 – 10) who is the only one worthy to open the book – and I will venture to say that it is only those who join with Him in His self-sacrifice, in His Cross, that are truly able to see present events for what they are in their foolishness and vanity, and to anticipate the glory of future events as the unfolding glory of the Lamb is manifested in His People and as His judgments work their way in the world.

 

Our nature and our calling is the love of Jesus Christ; to know that love and to live that love.

 

What does this love look like in our lives today?