Anchor My Faith

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Author: Stephen Weller
638 words, 3 minutes read time

Love One Another

Scripture: John 15:11-13

In the previous lesson we were instructed to abide in his love and as we do, we will learn in this lesson that we will fully experience his joy.

^{Jn 15:11} “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

These things include abiding in Jesus as a necessity to bear much fruit and abiding in his love, which is agape love, which produces a kind of lifestyle needed to bear fruit. Abiding in Jesus and abiding in his love are the same because Jesus is God and God is love (1 John 4:8, 16), so to abide in one is to abide in the other. The difference relates to the results. Abiding in Jesus relates to bearing fruit, while abiding in his love describes how we live when we are bearing fruit.

As we abide in his love, we get to experience joy as it is the first characteristic of love (Galatians 5:22). Unlike happiness, which is a feeling produced by an external stimulus, joy is based on the presence of God dwelling within us. This explains how a person can suffer for their faith and still have an expression of joy in their life. Jesus had great joy in obeying his Father in dying on the cross to purchase our salvation (Hebrews 12:2), just as we can experience joy while suffering in doing the work God has assigned us to do.

^{Jn 15:12} “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. ¹³ Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

As we abide in Jesus, we abide in his love and are born spiritually, and thus contain the source of agape love. This love that Jesus provides goes beyond the Mosaic command to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind to where we love with a love that lives within us. That love allows us to love not just God and those we like but even our enemies. Jesus came to live among his enemies and die for them that they could become part of the body of Christ. His love is a love that is willing to suffer for the benefit of another, not the kind of love we commonly seek to make us feel better. Here lies an example of life in heaven where our love is always an expression of benefit to another. If we lived that way here on earth, we would be seen by the world as radically different people.

Jesus commands us to love one another as he loved us; a love in which he was willing to die for us. To sacrifice our live for another is the greatest expression of love there is. Jesus saw us in need and because of his love for us, he willingly died to meet that need. That kind of sacrifice he requires of us, which is being lived our every day by those willing to die for their faith. Their faithfulness through death is a powerful witness to others to remain faithful and to the unsaved as an example of a follower of Jesus Christ.

Conclusion

A life lived fully immersed in agape love would be filled with joy and peace through continual perfect expressions of patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22 – 23) bearing fruit to the glory of God. It is a life continually lived in the interest of others as an expression of the kindness of God’s grace. Jesus said, “Abide in my love” so “that your joy may be full.”