Loved by Jesus So I can Work at the Impossible Task of Loving Others

When a young couple marries, they have all sorts of dreams of how wonderful life will be, maybe even how easy it will be, to live married with “the one I love.” Nevertheless, many find out that, though we might think loving another person is easy, sometimes love can be very difficult.

On Sunday, February 2, I preached on the appointed Gospel Lesson, Luke 4:31-44. But, in so doing I did not get to share the wonderful words of God from Corinthians 13, where He speaks through St. Paul to call us to love. The whole chapter is beautiful. Perhaps the best known section of 1 Corinthians 13 is found in verses 4-8a, and 13. “4Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8Love never ends. . . . 13So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” These inspired words make Christian love sound poetic and beautiful. Christian living should indeed witness to God through actions of kindness and patience. Nevertheless, while the poetry of this chapter sounds so beautiful, we can easily miss the depth of God’s call for His children.

Please consider some other lessons from our Lord concerning ‘love.’ God also inspired St. Paul to write in Romans 13:10, “. . . love is the fulfilling of the law.” Yet, who can fulfill God’s perfect law??!

Jesus’ call to His disciples in the upper room is plain. “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” (John. 13:34) However, who can love others with the giving, perfect, sacrifice, with which Jesus loved us?

Finally, while love may sound so beautiful, listen to this seemingly impossible call of our Lord from His Sermon on the Mount. 43 "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,” (Matt. 5:43-44 ESV) Which one of us can love our enemy? Honestly!

Yes, the Christian life is shown in love. But that love begins with faith, faith that God has first loved us. Think on what God says in 1 John 4:10-11, “10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” For us to love others, that love starts when God loves us. Or, meditate upon the unbelievable message from our Heavenly Father in Romans 5:8. “. . . God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”!!!

As people born in sin, we sadly cannot and do not love perfectly. Instead, we often act selfishly, unkindly, and impatiently. But Jesus loved perfectly. Jesus loved us in His agonizing death on the cross to pay for our sins. Jesus loved us when He rose from the grave, defeating death. Jesus loves us and offers eternal life to all who believe in Him. I do not deserve the love of Jesus, but He has acted in kindness and patience, with sacrifice and forgiveness. Faith that Jesus loves a sinner like me, helps me to love, however imperfectly. Faith in Jesus enables me to even pray for my enemies, and to work at treating them kindly.

For recreation I fish and I play golf. Those hobbies can look very easy. Yet many have trouble getting fish to bite, never mind actually catching the fish and landing it. It can look very simple to hit a ball which is laying still. However, just because golf looks simple does not make it so. When a young married couple, or a young Christian for that matter, considers loving others, such an act of giving may seem simple. But it is not. Nevertheless, Jesus’ love for us does help us to show love to others. Remember 1 Corinthians 13, “now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”