Love Radically

When Jesus was asked about the greatest commandment, you all know what He said. "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 first commandment" (Matt 22:37-38). He went on to say, "And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Matt 22:39). Okay, that's #1 and #2. Interestingly, He concluded, "On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets" (Matt 22:40). Scripture says similar things elsewhere. Paul wrote, "When Jesus was asked about the greatest commandment, you all know what He said. "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 first commandment" (Matt 22:37-38). He went on to say, "And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Matt 22:39). Okay, that's #1 and #2. Interestingly, He concluded, "On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets" (Matt 22:40). Scripture says similar things elsewhere. Paul wrote, "The one who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law" (Rom 13:8). How? "Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law" (Rom 13:10). Elsewhere he wrote, "The whole law can be summed up in a single commandment, namely, 'You must love your neighbor as yourself'" (Gal 5:14). God's moral order, then, rests on love. But in today's world it's important to ask, "What is love?" because we're not too clear on that anymore.

John wrote, "We have come to know love by this: that Jesus laid down His life for us; thus we ought to lay down our lives for our fellow Christians" (1 John 3:16). (Isn't it interesting that John's Gospel says that "God loved the world in this way; He gave His only Son so that whoever believes in Him shall have everlasting life," and that is found in John 3:16. Very similar.) You can see right away, then, that we're not talking about "in love," about romance or warm and cuddly feelings. We're not talking about affection. None of those are precluded from love, of course, but those kinds of love are not in view when Scripture says that love fulfills the law. What kind is? "Jesus laid down His life for us." The obvious conclusion? "Thus we ought to lay down our lives for our fellow Christians." Jesus told His disciples, "I give you a new commandment – to love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another" (John 13:34). The "new commandment" wasn't "love one another." That was old. The new part was "as I have loved you." The new part was "emptied Himself by taking the form of a servant" (Php 2:7). The new part was "laid down His life for us."

Now that is a radical love. That is not normal. That is not usual. That is not ... human -- not in a natural human sense. It defies human nature. That's why it requires divine influence. It requires God at work in us. It requires constantly dying to self. It requires a longer look, where we can see that surrender is victory and death is life and selflessness is a treasure in the end. Jesus said, "By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:35). By what? Love. But what love? That love He described the verse before -- "as I have loved you." That kind of love is sacrificial and shines in a dark world that lives on "looking out for #1." We each should examine ourselves (often) to see if we're loving radically.