How to Love Like JesusSample

What is love?

Love is a word that gets thrown around a lot in our culture. As a result, it tends to be a concept we think we understand, if only because we hear about it so much. Unfortunately, that can make it hard for us to square what the Bible teaches with how we’re inclined to think about it.

While the Bible defines love in a variety of ways across the breadth of God’s Word, a common thread is that biblical love is a choice rather than a feeling.

God never commands us how to feel. He does not designate certain emotions as inherently sinful or others as necessarily pure. Rather, his primary concern is with how we respond to those emotions.

Love is much the same.

God can command us to love him (Deuteronomy 6:5), to love our enemies (Matthew 5:44), and to love others as ourselves (Mark 12:31) because it is always within our power to do so. Were love synonymous with affection or desire, then it would be beyond our ability to control, and, as such, there would be times where we were incapable of following Christ’s commands.

God does not set us up to fail like that. He knows that we will sin, but we will never encounter a situation in which we have no option except to sin.

Understanding this distinction is important because it removes one of the primary barriers to loving people well: the belief that we have to like them first.

After a big fight, most spouses do not feel very loving toward one another. And every parent can remember a time when their child was jumping on their last nerve as if it were a trampoline. You may not like the other person in those moments, but that doesn’t mean that you’ve stopped loving them.

Why? Because love is a choice you make that goes beyond fickle feelings like warmth and agreeableness. In those moments, the best way to honor the other person as God intends is to remember your decision to prioritize their best interests, and act accordingly.

While it’s important to remember that love is a choice in our relationships with other people, it is just as important (if not more so) to remember that love is a choice in our relationship with God.

There will be times in life when it feels like God has let us down. Whether it’s because of an issue we face personally, something that afflicts a loved one, or even just looking at the depravity and evil in the world around us, there will be days when we have difficulty reconciling God’s omnipotent, omniscient, all-loving nature with the difficulties inherent to this life.

And in those moments, we may not like God very much.

If our love for God is limited by how much we like him, then we will not be able to consistently dedicate our heart, soul, mind, and strength to his service. We will not be able to love him as the Bible describes and as he deserves.

Whether it’s loving God or loving others, doing so consistently is difficult. Fortunately, the Gospels give us an excellent example of what that looks like in Jesus. As he told his disciples, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (John 13:34 ESV).

So, as we finish for today, spend a few minutes praying and reflecting on ways that you can choose to love God and those he has brought into your life. Ask the Lord to point out anyone whom you need to love better. Finally, ask God to point out any opportunities he brings your way to put that love into practice.

When you’re done, turn those thoughts into a prayer, asking for God’s help in loving well the people he brought to mind and any others that you may encounter.