Brethren, have you ever felt difficulty in loving another? This might have happened on days when you get home after a long day and feel tired, but there is a list of tasks to get to; or when you are frantically rushing to meet that deadline, but something crops up to throw you off your task; or when you trusted someone to do something but they failed to do it; or when you’ve been the recipient of injustice or betrayal.
Perhaps the question is also: What exactly is love and what does it entail? 1 Corinthians 13 describes love as, that which “suffereth long”; “seeketh not her own”; “is not puffed up”; “not easily provoked”; “beareth all things”; endureth all things”. Love in its true meaning, is not concerned with the self. Instead, it is interested in the needs and wel-lbeing of others. Gary Chapman (the author of ‘The Five Love Languages’) puts it as: “The object of love is not getting something you want but doing something for the well-being of the one you love.”
However, even if we know this, does it make it less exhausting to love? To have to consider another first and to have to put yourself second or even to be concerned with every other soul around us? Maybe that’s why love is so precious, because to love is so difficult. In its difficulty and sacrifice lies its beauty. To love another is more than a feeling but it is a choice made, to consider the other when making decisions and choices.
In fact, if anything, if anyone, if any group of people in the world has to love - it is us Christians. The bible says this: “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another: By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:34,35).
This also leads to the question on Why we should even love in the first place. It is not because of an arbitrary command; it is not for ourselves, but being recipients of such great love, such a sacrifice to you and me, how can we choose not to love?
In John chapter 13, Christ: the LORD; GOD in the flesh - knelt down and washed the feet of his disciples. He did it even to the one who was going to betray him, the one who was going to deliver him to his death. After that, he dismissed Judas to do the deed and then gave the commandment - to love. Would you be able to love the murderer who killed your family? Well, Christ essentially did. He was able to love the very people who were going to murder him. He was willing to serve them and He was willing to forgive them. He was willing to give them a second chance. Similarly in the case of the adulterous woman, if anyone could throw the condemning stone, it was Christ. If anyone was in a position to hate, to be bitter, or to seek justice, it was Christ. And yet, He chose to love. He chose not to throw that stone.
As Christians, we believed in what Christ had done and know how He loved us and how He died for us. We are also made aware of how God, owing us nothing, sent Christ to us in absolute mercy and grace. Due to God’s love for us, we sinners who had rejected him and were deserving of death were able to escape death. We are the recipients of such a great love, so how can we not love?
I would argue, we can love, because we have been loved, and we love because we have been loved. Let’s reflect on 1 John 4:7-11:
“Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.
Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.”
We can love God, because He first loved us. We can love our enemies, because Christ loved us, while we were still his enemies. We love our neighbours, because such a love is not extended only to Christians but to everyone. That’s why even as loving gets difficult, tiring, and wearisome, when we look at Christ and when we look at God and what He has done for us, it becomes light in comparison to all that.
This is affirmed in Matthew 22:37-40: “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
I was inspired to write this topic not because I know how to love. On the contrary, it is because I do not know how to love, and I think that I am actually far from it. Yet, I am greatly encouraged and comforted by the fact that all we need to do is look at the example of Christ, that no matter how hard love is, we can always choose to love. Regardless of the situation, person or anything at all, we can always choose to love because we have been shown how to do so through absolute patience, immense forgiveness and quiet sacrifice. To have such an example or faith is very comforting. To know that we are loved by such a God, and having that knowledge can inspire us to work towards that goal of a more perfect love in Christ. No matter what life throws at you, we as Christians can love like Christ. This is something in which those who do not know Christ will be unable to appreciate. It is the joy, faith, comfort and blessing of a Christian.
The amazing news is that such a love is for the lost. Knowing such a love exists and is available, surely it must compel us to share it too. Is this not amazing news, that we are loved by our Creator? (John 3:16). May we reflect on the example of Christ and learn to love others like He did.
To conclude, let us read John 13:34,35: “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”