John 15:13
" There is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends."
These are Christ's own words to His disciples before He Himself demonstrated the greatest act of love in all of history by dying, not for His friends, but for His enemies. The verse before this, Jesus gives his disciples a command: love one another. This following verse (13) explains how deep their love must be. Their love must mirror Christ's own. But how do we mirror His love? Usually when I stop to ask myself this question, I automatically begin to examine my love for others. I want to discover how deep it truly is...how much do I mirror Christ...is my love strong, vibrant, and sacrificial? The problem is that when I start doing this, I take my eyes off of Christ's love and I fix my eyes on my own love---my own works. So what do we do? We don't worry about how deep our love is...we don't concern ourselves with how we look...we don't examine our progress. These may seem rather strange and quite contradictory. Yet imagine what would happen if an athlete looked back during a race to see how far he had come and to see how far back his competitors were...he would lose his place in the race because he did not keep his gaze fixed on the goal before him. The secret to cultivating deep love is not in seeing that we have it, but in gazing upon Christ's deep love. If we forget about possessing love and instead abide in Christ's love we will begin living out love in our daily lives. I know that I so often fall into the trap of obsessing over whether I am living out Christ's love and wondering if I am showing love like Christ that I often times miss out on the opportunities that God sends my way to actually love others. So I am left with this thought: Fix all of my thoughts, thanksgivings, daily moments on the love of Christ for sinners---be swallowed up in Christ's love and do not worry about how I can love others. Instead as I am consumed with Christ's love, He will pour His love through me.
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