“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. “

John 15:12

Not your typical command from a ruler. He didn’t say fight others so that my kingdom can grow. I think there were some rulers who definitely didn’t read this verse back during the Crusades. These conquerors forgot to love others, and used Jesus as an excuse to steal land, to kill, and to do decidedly not Christ-like things. 

That’s not what Jesus commanded us to do. He commanded us to love. To love one another, just like Jesus loved us. He loved us unconditionally, selflessly, giving his life so that we could live good lives, and that means not harming others.

I think the idea of a parent’s love is the best example of what God’s love is like, maybe even take a moment to think about someone for whom you would do anything. That and even greater is how God loves us. And that’s how He wants you to love the world. Like Jesus. Loving for the sake of love, and care, and compassion. Human love. Because Jesus was human, and even though we have a human tendency to fight and conquer and a blinding desire to succeed, perhaps really our greatest asset as humans is instead the ability to love.

What is love?

“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.  So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

1 Corinthians 13 : 8-13

PRAYER: God, help me to learn to love like You do. To love those that feel unlovable to me, no matter what they’ve done to me, or to others. No matter what decisions they have made that are different from mine. Let me love without expecting it back, as selfless as Jesus.