Love is the key in the Christian faith. It occupies a place of importance which nothing else compares to.
John 13: 34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35 By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
First, love is a commandment. It’s not an option. If we do not love one another, we are disobeying the Lord.
Secondly, it’s the new commandment, because of Christ in us, who can love through us. In a certain sense, it supersedes and sums up and includes all the previous commandments.
We need to acknowledge that this is the real test of discipleship. In this verse the Lord has given the world the right to judge the church. If the people of this world see us as Christians not loving one another, then they have a perfect right on the authority of the words of Jesus to say that we are not His disciples.
Romans 13: 8 Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law.
10 Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law.
Galatians 5: 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love.
The only thing that really matters in the Christian life, is faith expressing itself through love.
External ordinances and rituals are of secondary importance. The center of our whole faith is expressed through love.
For those of us who are in Christian ministry, whether as teachers or pastors or whatever it may be, it’s important that we take heed to the superiority of love over all other aspects of the Christian life, because it makes a difference to our ministry.
1 Timothy 1: 5 Now the objective of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith.
The only legitimate and ultimate goal of all Christian ministry is to produce love. Any ministry that does not produce love is deviating from God’s purpose and ends up in fruitless discussion, empty words, wasted time. We need to test our own ministry by that standard. Are we producing people who love one another?
If the people in our church are not loving one another, all the other activities is really a waste of time.
It should be our determination to produce people who really love one another.
What is the nature of love as we understand it in the New Testament?
In the Greek there are four main words, which refer to some kind of love.
The first is eros, Passionate, romantic, and often sexual love, tied to desire and physical attraction, from which we get “erotic”.
The second is storge, Natural affection, such as the bond between parents and children or a deep, familiar bond.
The third is phileo, Deep friendship, loyalty, and affection between equals, focusing on shared experiences and mutual respect.
The fourth is agape, Unconditional, selfless, and charitable love, often associated with divine love for humanity. It represents pure and enduring love, primarily as manifested by God Himself, though there are places in the New Testament where it is used of love other than the love of God. But normally agape refers to love that originates from God Himself.
How does love come? How is it produced?
All fruit must be cultivated. How do we cultivate love?
There are four principles about the cultivation of agape love.
First, love of this kind is born from the seed of God’s word received into a believer’s heart.
1 Peter 1: 22 Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart.
Peter says, fervently love one another from the heart, for you have been born again of the seed of the word of God.
In other words, it’s being born again of the seed of God’s word that makes it possible for us to love with this kind of love.
Initially, it’s the product of the seed of the word of God.
1 John 4: 7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
There is a kind of love which can only come through being born of God. Everyone who is born of God should be manifesting that kind of love, and a person who does not manifest that kind of love has no scriptural basis for claiming to be born of God.
The second principle is that love is poured out by the Holy Spirit.
Romans 5: 5 Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
The heart of the born-again believer becomes a vessel for God’s love. A person who has not been born again has no vessel suitable to contain God’s love. But when we are born again, our hearts become vessels for God’s love, and then the Holy Spirit can pour out the love of God into our hearts.
So that’s the impact of the Holy Spirit.
Thirdly, cultivating this kind of love requires the cooperation of our will. We’re so used today to love which is emotional or physical that some people hardly recognize there’s a different kind of love which is not centered in the emotions, it’s not centered in the physical body, but it’s centered in the will.
Agape love centers in the will. It comes primarily from the decision and the set of our will. It does not depend upon our emotions or our physical sensations.
Fourthly, this kind of love is expressed in action by laying down our lives.
John 15: 12 This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends
Jesus said, this is a commandment, it’s not an option, that you love one another.
How do we do this?
Just as I have loved you. How was Jesus’ love for us expressed? By laying down His life for us. If we love one another, then we are obligated to lay down our lives for one another.
1 John 3: 16 By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
See, that’s the essence of agape love. It’s laying down our life. Not necessarily as a martyr through physical death, but by making ourselves and what we possess and our abilities and talents available to our brothers in Christ. That’s laying down our lives for our brothers, the expression of agape love.
First, it’s the product of being born again of God’s Word. A person who is not born again cannot produce that kind of love.
Secondly, the born again heart becomes a vessel for the Holy Spirit to fill up with God’s love.
Thirdly, love of this kind centers in the will, not in the emotions or in the physical body.
And fourthly, this kind of love is expressed in the way that Jesus Himself expressed it for us. It’s expressed by laying down our lives.
If we are not willing to lay down our lives for our fellow believers, we have no right to claim that we have this kind of love.