John 13:34-35,  “A new command I give to you, that you love one another:  just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

First thing we need to ask ourselves is: How does Jesus love us?  What limits and conditions does He set?  How does He respond to our sin and shortcomings?  What does He do when we have needs in our lives?  

I fully understand that we are not Jesus ~ He is perfect and we are not. He is God and we aren’t.  But, He has called us to love like He does and He gives us His Spirit when we accept Him as our Savior to enable us to rise above our human nature. This is a tall order but if it were not possible to at least try to do so He wouldn’t have said it. 

It all begins by accepting the fact that He loves you!  You, not just everyone else, but you. His love for you is unconditional!  He doesn’t love you based on your performance, He wants to help you become all He knows you can be. He knows what you have in you and He is working to bring out the best in you, because He wants to see you succeed. He forgives you quickly and completely when you ask. He isn’t holding a grudge against you for any past wrongs. Do you struggle to receive that?

I know we all struggle on some level fully understanding His love because we have never experienced anyone else loving us like that but the closer we walk with Him the more we begin to understand. I pray continuously for Him to fill me with His love for people. We all know at least one person who can make loving them the way He does difficult, but most people who are like that are hurting and they don’t feel loved. The sad thing is that in these verses He is telling us to love other believers this way and I think we may be missing the mark just a tad. Have you ever had another Christian misjudge you, lie about you, look down on you, mistreat or dismiss you, make you feel unloved and unwanted?  Ugh!  It happens way too much. Have you ever done that to someone else?  I see it in churches unfortunately too when your status as a Christian and worth in the church is based on your social status. We can do better!  I know we are capable of doing better because we have the same spirit in us that rose Jesus from that grave, we just have to allow Him to fill us. The only way to have more of Him is for there to be less of ourselves. He isn’t going to push you out to have more space within you, you have to make that decision. If you are truly full of the Holy Spirit then the fruit of who He is will show out in your life. That should be our goal. 

The reason we must begin with other Christians is because if we can’t love each other the way we should how will we ever love those who don’t know Him?  How will you ever love others the way He loves you if you don’t believe He really, wholeheartedly loves you?  We can do this!  I was struggling one day with this over someone who doesn’t know Jesus because of what he did to my daughter and I was wrestling with God in prayer over it and His response was, “Love him anyway.”  That didn’t mean he had to be a part of our lives as her friend or anything else, but it opened my heart to be able to pray for him on a whole other level. We don’t get to decide who is worthy. How will they know if we don’t even have love for each other, let alone the lost?  Let’s determine in our hearts and minds to ask God to fill us with His love for all people. Let’s pray for Him to allow Him to show us areas we need to release to Him so there can be more of Him and less of us. Our time is short here on earth so let’s allow Him to shine His love through us to reach as many as we can for His kingdom and His glory!