(Note: this page is intended for Christians; if you are not a Christian you are free to read but this page is not intended for you)
John 13:34-35
“…Love one another. As I have loved you…”
Love is a very important part of the Christians life and love is the very reason anyone can become a Christian in the first place (God loved humans so much he sent Jesus to save us
John 3:16
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,…” ).
And we are also required to love God with all our hearts, But love is not only important between you and God, but its also important to have love between you and other fellow Christians as well!
Jesus gives the first command of Christian love
The importance of love towards fellow Christians begins with Jesus and his disciples. It began right at the end of Jesus’s three and a half year ministry right before his crucifixion: the 12 disciples Jesus specially hand-picked had gotten to spend at least three years with Jesus traveling and learning from him,
He even told them he loves them as much as his heavenly father (God) loved him:
John 15:9
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you[Disciples].”
So on this night right before he was going to be killed, Jesus had something very important to say to them all:
He gave them a very special command: He gave a new command that was not directly found in the Old Covenant (Old Testament/Mosaic Laws) that they tried to obey: It was one major command to the disciples that applied only to them:
John 13:34
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you,…”
This was so important to Jesus that he mentions this to the disciples two more times right before going to be crucified:
John 15:12
“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.”
John 15: 17
“…This is my command: Love each other.”
Jesus then gives one reason why he wants his disciples to love one another like this:
John 13:34-35
“…you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Jesus’s disciples were to be an example to all other non-disciples in their love for one another and would make them stand out from the world as a people of love.
So Jesus’s will for his disciples after his death was to stay together, help one another, and most importantly love one another like he had loved them all these years.
when Jesus came back to life, he appeared to all the 12 disciples giving them a divine mission before he left earth:
Matthew 28:19-20
“...go and make disciples of…[other]…nations,…and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”
So they were to train other people from other nations how to also be disciples of Jesus to obey him like Jesus taught them to obey him. And this included the command to love one another like the disciples learned to love each other!
All these new disciples of Jesus eventually became known as Christians, And the original 12 disciples (such as John) frequently taught the new Christians to love one another like God loved them!
John says this is the first message to the Christians he taught.
1 John 3:11
“...this is the message you heard from the beginning (ever since I taught you): We should love one another.”
Peter says since we have been made new, we should love one another deeply:
1 Peter 1:22
“Now that you have purified yourselves (by being made new by being born again) by obeying the truth [the Gospel]…love one another deeply, from the heart.”
Infact this is so important; it is the #1 most important thing to do as a Christian (besides loving God!)
1 Peter 4:8
"Above all, love each other deeply,..."
Later Apostles, such as Paul, also taught fellow Christians to love one another:
1 Thessalonians 3:12
“May…your love increase and overflow for each other…”
So, Jesus (and therefore God) makes it very clear that he desires all Christians to get along and even deeply love and care for one another like Jesus (and God) do.
So we are to love other Christians like Jesus loved them: this is our standard for loving each other.
So the real question is how much did Jesus love them?
The Bible says He loved them so much he was willing to die for them!
Romans 5:8
“...his own love…[is]…this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Jesus even says he loved his disciples enough to die for them:
John 15:13-14
“ Greater love has no one than this: to lay down [die] one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends…”
Wow! that’s some serious love Jesus has for us! And that's how serious we need to love one another as impossible as it may seem!
While this seems like the right thing to do (and it is) and a great thing to do, for some Christians, however, this could turn out to be quite a challenge. Because, for the most part, a Christian’s walk begins dealing with as the individual and their personal love for God first. After realizing how much God (and Jesus) loved us to die for us as a sacrifice, it’s pretty easy to love God and Jesus so deeply because they are so easy to love for an individual Christian. However, God/Jesus will eventually require an individual Christian to begin to love fellow Christians like the individual loves him. This can be a little more difficult, because unlike God and Jesus, other Christians can be a little harder to love sometimes. As naturally selfish humans, it's hard to really love another human that is not even a close family member or even a friend (basically a complete stranger) who has not really done nothing for you to even like them. Depending on the Christians you might meet in your church/life some might be rude, some might annoy you, some might not want nothing to do with you, and some might even hate you and treat you horribly! (While this behavior is not acceptable for a true Christian this is to show how it might be hard to deeply love a fellow Christian). So how can you genuinely love Christians like this like your commanded to do?
Fortunately, we are not alone in this: through God’s gift of the holy spirit within us he can help us love our fellow Christians like we should:
God can and will grow your love towards other fellow Christians
1 Thessalonians 3:12
“May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other…”
If God’s holy spirit lives in us then his spirit makes it possible to love other Christian and it proves we know and have God’s spirit in us:
1 John 4:12
“No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”
And by taking the step to being born again we have already taken the right steps toward reaching sincere (genuine) love toward one another:
1 Peter 1:22
“Now that you have purified yourselves (been born again) by obeying the truth (the gospel) so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart.”
And since God loved us so much to sacrifice his only son its only right to least try to love other Christians:
1 John 4:11
“Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”
With all this help and motivation, it should make it much easier to love other Christians genuinely. This is not to say it will never be hard to love fellow Christians it might be hard at times, especially if such a Christian is mean or rude, but through God’s spirit we can obey Jesus and deeply love one another as God and Jesus intended.