No Greater Love, Pt. 2

How did Jesus love? He loved through action and sacrifice. He did not just talk about love; He embodied it and lived it out.

No Greater Love, Pt. 2

"This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends."

(John 15:12-13)

Aitzaz Hassan was a 15 year-old student in his home country of Pakistan. While walking to school, he and his buddies noticed a man wearing the school uniform, but something did not seem right. They realized he was no student but was a suicide bomber with a bomb strapped to his body. When he knew his cover was blown, the bomber started walking quickly to the school. Hassan started throwing stones at him to make him stop, but the man kept approaching the school to kill as many students as he could. As he approached the gate, Hassan reached him and tackled him. The man detonated the bomb, killing both himself and Hassan. Hassan saved the lives of many students in his heroic act of self-sacrifice. (Source.)

In our biblical text for today's devotion, Jesus teaches His disciples then and today to love one another. He tells us this is His commandment. He has something very important He wants us to do; He in fact is commanding us to do it. What is it? He is commanding us to agape one another, to love one another. How? As He has loved us.

How did Jesus love? He loved through action and sacrifice. He did not just talk about love; He embodied it and lived it out. We worship and honor Him because, as the Son of God and Son of Man, He laid down His sinless life as a substitute for sin, that we might all go free. In John 15:12, Agapao is a present tense, active voice verb in Greek. When Jesus said to love one another, He was telling us to continually love and sacrifice for one another.

In John 15:13, Jesus teaches us something very profound in precept and eventually in example. He tells us that there is no greater love than to lay down one's life. The person who loves this deeply gives their all. That is what Jesus did on the cross; He gave all He had, His very life's blood. 1 John 4:18 states, "My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth." Most of us will not be called upon to lay down our lives in death for another. We may, but most will not. But the call of Jesus for us to love with that kind of selfless love is not just for some of us, but for all of us.

Ephesians 5:2 says, "Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God."

Service and sacrifice—ponder these two words. Reflect on the ultimate example of Jesus Christ, Who served and gave His all by dying on the cross. There is no greater love or act of valor or heroism than for one to lay down his life for another. Jesus said it best when He said, "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

Jesus led by precept and example; He willingly laid down His life and not just for good people, but for all people–yes, even sinners like me. Paul wrote in Romans 5:7-8, "Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."