Love Like Jesus

1. Love is Jesus’ command.

It’s interesting to note that there is only one thing during all of Jesus’ teaching and all of His ministry that Jesus attached the word commandment. But He attaches that word when He talks about love.

John 13:34 (NLT) So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.

John 15:12 (NLT) This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you.

We are not just called to love, we are commanded to love. Everything else depends on it.

Disciples of Jesus consistently discern the needs of others and share God’s love in meaningful ways.

2. Love is also our response to Grace.

We can’t study the life of Jesus and avoid life-altering grace. Jesus is the personification of grace. He acknowledges the ugliness of sin but chooses to see beyond it. Jesus not only radiated grace in His teachings, but in His life. Reflecting on the grace that Jesus gave us and then thinking about the people God regularly places in our lives helps us to love them like Jesus.

John 15:13 (NLT) There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

Disciples of Jesus selflessly demonstrate the love of Jesus with those in need of hope and justice, sharing God’s compassion and grace.

3. Love is a reflection of our identity

Loving like Jesus requires steady looks in the mirror. In order to live out our call, we must see ourselves the way Jesus see us, nothing less and nothing more. To love others like Jesus loves, we must first be secure in our identity in Jesus. We must be confident when we look in the mirror, we see His reflection. If Jesus is both our Lord and Savior than we are not who we were, rather, we are who He has made us.

1 John 1:1 (NLT) See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are!

Only when we firmly embrace that we are the children of God will we be able to love others like Jesus love us.

Ephesians 1:4-6 (NLT) Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son.

Disciples of Jesus live with a deep understanding of identity.