The Most Powerful Kind of Love

The most rewarding thing in my life right now is teaching my children. Watching them grow and mature, learning new skills each day, and tackling things like fractions may seem mundane to some, but for a teacher, it is the greatest reward. One of the hardest things about teaching my own children is keeping them engaged, plugged into the lesson I am trying to teach. I can tell when they are not paying attention and it can be quite aggravating. I often have to repeat myself to make sure they hear it clearly. If they choose to remain and abide in the lesson we are learning, they will more than likely grasp the concept at hand. If not, the lesson they were supposed to learn will have to be retaught.

Isn’t this true about our growth as Christians? How often does God try to teach us a lesson but we are too distracted to learn? He patiently reteaches us when we decide to plug back into our relationship with Him. The greatest lesson that Jesus came to teach was the lesson of love. Not just any kind of love. Agape love. Unconditional love. Enduring love. Demonstrative love. And as any good teacher would do, He modeled this love before requiring his disciples to demonstrate it.

He spent years loving each person who came His way. As He was teaching His disciples about how to endure once He was gone, He gave them the vine and the branches analogy. Here is what He says regarding growth and love. “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” John 15:9-13

1. Living a life of love exemplifies abiding in Christ.

The love that flows through us comes from Jesus Himself. In order for us to grow in this kind of love, we must first remain in His. But remaining is difficult because there are so many other things vying for our attention. Growth takes a long time. When we plant a garden, we know that it takes more than a few weeks to see the first sprout poke up through the soil. And we don’t get frustrated and irritated because we don’t immediately see fruit from our labor. But somehow this doesn’t translate into our growth as believers. Many times we only want the benefits of being in Christ, but we don’t want to go through the painful act of growing.

So, why don’t we abide in Christ and His love? After all, don’t we love to sing, Jesus loves me, and don’t we love to talk about being loved by Him? His love gives us that warm feeling, it envelops us and makes us feel good doesn’t it? So why do we close ourselves off from that live giving love?

At the beginning of John 15, Jesus says, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.”

When we abide in Christ and His love, it is inevitable that God will begin the work of pruning away the things in our lives that are keeping us from producing good fruit for the Kingdom. Pruning is never fun. You never see a plant cheer when the gardener begins to trim away the parts that are not producing good fruit. But the gardener prunes because He loves his plant. He wants it to thrive and grow as much as possible. His love for the plant causes Him to do the hard work of pruning so in the end there will be a harvest of healthy fruit.

But pruning exposes the plant. The trimmed back vine is now exposed to the elements. When a believer is being pruned, we find ourselves feeling exposed.

2. God lovingly prunes us to expose our sin.

Out of Jesus’ great love for us, He tends to expose our sin. It’s uncomfortable when we feel exposed. So instead of abiding in Christ’s love, we pull back because of fear. We are afraid that if our sin is exposed we will be ruined.

Woman at the well.

This agape love that we have in Christ is powerful and life giving. And if we are plugged into the source, we will begin to love as He loves. You would think that the love we show people would be returned, but so often it’s not. In fact, a lot of times people will hate us because of the love we have and the love we show.

After Jesus speaks of abiding in Him and His love, and commanding His disciples to love each other in the same way that He has loved them, He makes this statement, “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 19 If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.”

I’ve thought a lot about this lately. How can Jesus go from talking about the extravagant love we have when we abide in Him to being hated by the world because of Him. What causes people to hate those who are abiding in Christ’s love?

3. People who are in the world do not understand the love of Christ.

They can’t comprehend unconditional love because they’ve been conditioned to believe that love is never free. The world on functions on conditional love. You give me something, I’ll give you something in return. You withhold love, I’ll withhold love. We are very skeptical of anything that is free, with no strings attached.

My email inbox is currently filled with “deals” that promise I will get something for free.....if I buy something first. I might be saving a lot of money, but I am still spending money in order to save money. Don’t get me wrong, I love good deals, but that is how the world perceives love. It’s a deal you make.

But the sacrificial love of Christ is what runs through the believers veins. We don’t expect anything in return. This kind of love can be life giving, but it can also scare those who have been burned by the love this world offers. They can’t understand the unconditional love we offer because they have never experienced the unconditional love we have received in Christ.

4. People will hate us because they feel threatened by us.

People hated Jesus because they felt threatened by the love He showed sinners. Those who hated Him were mainly the religious folks of His day. They didn’t have a box to put Him in because they too had been conditioned to love conditionally. If someone didn’t abide by their rules and traditions, they were labeled as “other” and “wrong” and they were cast out.

When Jesus came He radically transformed the meaning of love. It was no longer about what you could offer, it was all about what He could offer without demanding anything in return. His love for the widow, the orphan, the leper, the blind, the outcast, the gentiles, the crippled, the sick and the sinner contradicted everything the Jews believed in. And it threatened their comfortable lifestyle.

When anything is threatened it is natural to retaliate. The Pharisees were constantly trying to trap Jesus. They wanted Him gone. They asked Him questions to try and make Him say something blasphemous so they’d have grounds to get rid of Him for good. They were threatened by Him.

When we express Jesus’ love to those around us, sometimes people will feel threatened by it. Christ’s love confronts our insecurities and our sin. He might put us in situations that bring light into the lives of those who are living in darkness. God can give us the ability to love others who are extremely steeped in sin and sometimes that love exposes the sin in their lives. And again, people don’t like feeling exposed so many times they will get angry with us and remove themselves from our lives.

Now this is a sensitive subject. Sometimes as believers we feel like we are supposed to call people out and convict them of their sin. First off, we are not the Holy Spirit. It is His job to convict. But there are times when we are led to talk about hard things with people in our lives. How we handle these conversations can either bring life or condemnation. Abiding in the love of Christ means that we always handle these situations in love. We don’t bring down judgment upon people. Instead we speak to them in love, and no matter what we continue to love them through the process.

Jesus challenges us to love those who are hard to love, which can threaten those who are comfortable loving the lovable. It spurs us on to live radically generous lives. We become people who are generous with our time, energy and resources. We become a voice for those who have no voice. We serve those who society has cast out. And this kind of love can threaten those who do not want anything to change. Those who don’t see that there are injustices in this world. And they can turn on us because of the love we show.

5. People can hate us because they’re jealous of us.

People can also turn on us when they are jealous of us. I remember when I was in middle and high school, if another girl was mean to me for no reason, my mom would often say, “They’re probably just jealous of you.” I didn’t always believe it, but the older I get the more I see the truth of that statement. When someone turns on you for no apparent reason, it may be because they are jealous of you.

Jealousy is a natural human emotion. People can become jealous of your relationship with another friend, or the things God has blessed you with, or the spiritual gifts you’ve been given. When we abide in the love of Christ and His love abides in us, people can become jealous of the ways He calls us to serve or the people He calls us to love. If that jealousy takes root it can turn a friend into an enemy before you know what’s happening.

Jesus always attracted a crowd. People gathered around Him as He entered towns because His reputation proceeded Him. The other Rabbi’s saw this and you better believe that they were jealous of His following. And ultimately it was out of jealousy that the Jewish leaders called for Christ’s crucifixion. When Pontius Pilate stood before the crowd, he offered to release Barabbas, a prisoner who had been accused of murder, or Jesus. Mark 15:9-11 says, “Do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?” asked Pilate, 10 knowing it was out of self-interest that the chief priests had handed Jesus over to him. 11 But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have Pilate release Barabbas instead.”

The Jewish leaders hated Jesus because the jealousy that resided in their hearts. We can be hated simply because people are jealous of the love we have.

Jesus knew that He was hated, and He knew that we would be hated as well. And the hatred that we would face would be because of our faith and love in Him. He knew we would have enemies here on earth. So He gave us specific instructions on how to handle our enemies.

Matthew 5:43-48, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor  and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

When we think of the verse for the worldwide church in our day and age, we think of John 3:16. But for the early church, this was their John 3:16. These are the words they took to heart and owned. They are not as “feel good” as John 3:16, but they were extremely applicable for their cultural context. The Christians became the target for unjust persecution. It was rampant at this point in history. and due to it, believers were scattered all over the place. Wherever they went, they were met with opposition, but they continued to proclaimed the Gospel. They had real enemies who had real weapons and a real agenda to wipe out their entire community. This was the perfect backdrop to put Jesus’ words into action. And because they took Jesus at His Word, the church still endures today.

Jesus gives us perspective in this passage. He reveals the heart of God for His enemies. It shows that He doesn’t give up on His enemies, He pursues them. He doesn’t curse them, He actually blesses them. He doesn’t leave them to wither and die, He continues to provide for them. He didn’t just die for His friends, He died for His enemies as well because He loves them.

Now He is setting the standard for those who profess that they are Christ followers. We are to do the same. When we are abiding in Christ and His love is abiding in us, nothing is too hard for us to do. Even when we are hurt, even when we feel betrayed, we can still love unconditionally because we have been loved unconditionally.

The world will take notice of this type of love. Those in the world easily love those who love them. But it is only those who rely on the supernatural love of Christ who can love their enemies. It is something only Jesus can do through us.

When we pray for our enemies we humble ourselves before God and recognize that we were once His enemies. And because of His faithfulness to us and the love of those He put in our lives, we have been saved. Now we get to be a part of this process for others. We can pray against hostility, jealousy, and envy. We can pray against the lies that people believe about the love of God. We can pray that they will trust His love enough to allow Him to expose the sin in their lives. We will pray for opportunities to speak truth in love into their lives.

The power of the hatred people have towards us can be broken by the power of Christ’s love that flows through us. And this is the kind of love that can change the world one enemy at a time.

The New International Version. (2011). (Mt 5:43–48). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

The New International Version. (2011). (Mk 15:9–11). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

We shouldn’t be creating enemies because we put people in their place.