“You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (Deuteronomy 6:5).
In his book, Mere Christianity, the British writer, scholar, and theologian, C. S. Lewis, set out to explain the power of love saying, “Do not waste your time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this, we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less” (https://www.sermonillustrations.com/a-z/l/love.htm).
The power of love is so great that it requires four different words to describe and explain it. Familial love, known as “storge,” refers to the natural, wholesome affection and bond that exists between family members. This is the love that parents have for their children and children have for their siblings. Phileo love refers to brotherly love or affection that is characterized by strong friendship and emotional attachment. This love is recognized by a personal bond and fondness for someone often because of shared experiences and common interests. Phileo is the root of the word Philadelphia, which means “city of brotherly love.” Eros love refers to sexual love shared by a husband and a wife. Finally, agape love refers to selfless, sacrificial love. This is the love that God has for His creation including His people. This type of love does not express itself in order to receive something in return. God loves, simply, because He is love. Jesus showed agape love for the world in His death on the cross, the greatest sacrifice known to man. He died in our place and on our behalf to pay the penalty for our sins, so we would not have to die and spend eternity in Hell. This is how He has loved us.
Even as flawed, sinful human beings, the Bible calls us to love God and others with agape love, regardless of personal cost or reciprocation. Whether other people ever love and care for us, we are certainly to make every effort in Christ and by the power of Christ, to love them. Moreover, there should be no doubt about our familial love for our family members and phileo love for others, especially for people with which we are blessed to share wholesome experiences or survive difficult or dangerous times. D. L. Moody once wrote, “Show me a church where there is love, and I will show you a church that is a power in the community. In Chicago, a few years aga, a little boy attended a Sunday School I know of. When his parents moved to another part of the city, the little fellow still attended the same Sunday School, although it meant a long, tiresome walk each way. A friend asked him why he went so far, and told him that there were plenty of others (meaning Sunday Schools) just as good nearer his home. The little boy replied, “They may be as good for others, but not for me.” “Why not?” his friend asked. He said, “Because they love a fellow over there.” Moody then suggested that, if we could make the world believe that we loved them, there would be fewer empty churches and a smaller proportion of our population who never darken a church door. Moody said, “Let love replace duty in our church relations, and the world will soon be evangelized” (https://www.sermonillustrations.com/a-z/l/love.htm).
On one occasion, a Pharisee asked Jesus which of all the laws of God was the greatest. Jesus answered saying, “YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND. This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF. On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.” By neighbor, Jesus did not mean the person living next door. He meant your fellow human beings. Think of it. We are commanded by the God of Heaven and Earth to love Him and to love each other.
Thinking seriously on this deep desire of our Creator for each of us should make us wonder how many of our hurts, pains, difficulties, trials, disappointments, and tragedies would be averted if we would simply strive, with all that is in us and the power of God, to love Him and each other. What kind of world could we truly have if we simply followed these two greatest commandments? However, love for others is complex. It involves a compassion that expresses itself in both gentleness and sternness. When we love people, we desire God’s best for them which is often at odds with their own desires, motives, and actions. Our love must drive us to encourage them to pursue God’s will for their lives, celebrate their achievements when they are honorable, rebuke and admonish them when their thoughts and actions are dishonorable, and say “no” to them when their intentions are to continue living dishonorably and in opposition to God’s will revealed in the Bible. This is the way God loves us and the way we are commanded to love others. This high, heavenly, holy love is only possible, when we love Jesus with our whole being, and have Him living in us doing His will for us and through us. It is His character, power, and enablement that makes our love for our neighbors biblically accurate and possible.
I read about a very unusual military funeral in California in December 2013. Sargent First Class Joseph Gantt, who fought in both World War II and the Korean War, was laid to rest. He had been captured in Korea in 1950 and died the following year. However, his body was not returned for many years, and his death was never confirmed by the North Koreans. His wife, Clara, waited for decades for her husband to come home. She went regularly to meetings with government officials seeking information about what had happened to her husband. Clara even bought a house and had it professionally landscaped, so all Joseph would have to do when he came home was go fishing. She was ninety-four years old when his remains were finally brought home for a military funeral with full honors. It was not the homecoming she dreamed of, but she finally had closure knowing his fate. Clara told a reporter who interviewed her, “He told me if anything happened to him, he wanted me to remarry, and I told him, ‘No, no.’ Here I am, still his wife, and I’m going to remain his wife until the day the Lord takes me home” (https://ministry127.com/resources/illustration/unfailing-love).
Friends, true, godly love is just like that. It is never temporary or fleeting. The love that is possible through a genuine saving relationship with Jesus Christ is not here today and gone tomorrow. No, no. His love to us and in us that is reciprocated to Him and poured out to our fellow human beings is a commitment that is meant to last. God’s love is not based on our feelings or our circumstances. It is a choice of will. Simply put, we choose to love God and others as God has loved us. This is exactly what Jesus told His disciples in John 13:34-35: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Furthermore, do not think that Jesus is asking more from us than is possible. If we consider only ourselves, our character, and our resources, then this high, heavenly, holy love is impossible. Yet, remember that Jesus told us in Mark 10:27: “All things are possible with God.” Jesus set an enormous promise and challenge before us when He said in John 15:7: “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” We can be most assured that on top of the list of our wishes should be to love Jesus and love like Jesus. What if today, right now, every person was to make sure of their salvation in Jesus Christ and then sincerely, wholeheartedly, with every righteous intention, ask God to give us His love and make it possible for us to love others with His love?
Can you imagine what our homes, workplaces, communities, and churches would look like if we all found out we had only ten minutes left to do and say all that we want to the people we know and love? Why, people would be scrambling to express love in their actions and words. Well, why wait until the last ten minutes? Why not start right now, like never before, showing in our actions and words that we love Jesus Christ with our whole beings and our fellow human beings with the same wholesome love with which we love ourselves?
Would you answer this holy and high calling to love by giving your all to love God and others as Jesus Christ has loved you? If so, then commit, but remember that we can never love others as we are commanded until we first love Jesus as we are called. Commit, therefore, to love Jesus Christ with your whole being—heart, soul, mind, and strength—that means with all that you are. READY. SET. GO.