To feel loved is one of a person’s greatest desires and core needs. For centuries people have tried to find true and perfect love or a soulmate. However, because people are all imperfect, except for Jesus, how can we genuinely find and share perfect love?
- Do you know your definition and understanding of love and how it looks next to Christ’s?
- Will your love focus be on sharing love or receiving love?
- How will you know if your love is healthy?
To find the answers to these questions, you will need to explore your beliefs about love. As Christ’s disciples, we must understand that the only perfect love comes from God. We can see His perfect love lived out through the life of Christ.
Various Definitions of True Love
Many people use the word love to describe their fondness for a type of food, a place, activity, movie, or any other preference in their life. The common overuse of the word love has watered down many aspects of God’s definition of love. Scripture tells us.
For through him (Christ) God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see— such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen World. Everything was created through him and for him. (Col. 1:16, NLT)
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. (1 John 4:7-8, ESV)
God showed us a picture of perfect love when He sent his only Son, Jesus, to earth in an imperfect body to die a horrific criminal’s death to pay for our sins. Jesus was fully God and man, which means our perfect God chose to personally experience every aspect of our imperfect life. Would you sacrifice yourself through the life of your son unless you had perfect love? This picture of love for us is the perfect love of God.
Jesus Shares His Pure Love
When we look at the words and actions of Jesus throughout his three years of ministry, we get a better understanding of pure love. Jesus chose to see people as God’s creations. He saw them with equal value and gave them equal respect. Jesus shared the love of God as he met people where they were without judgment or condemnation. He gave people hope and showed them how to walk in his loving respect, honor, and freedom.
Jesus shared God’s truth of repentance, forgiveness, and salvation. He showed people that God’s pure love can never contain manipulation, fear, threats, or any abuse. Jesus respected each person’s faith journey while sharing God’s truth with them. Jesus never argued, blamed, begged, or pleaded with anyone to believe. Christ’s love gave them the freedom to choose.
Living in Christ’s Pure Love and Sharing it with Others
If we proclaim to be Christ’s disciples, we must learn all the aspects of his love and share them with others. Jesus stated several times in Scripture that Jesus does what his Father does. (John 5:19, NLT) To be Christ’s disciple, we must follow what he did. We must have a personal relationship with Jesus and our Father, God, to be able to love others as Jesus loved us.
The apostle Paul started out persecuting and killing followers of Christ. However, when Paul encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus, he realized he had missed the very essence of God’s pure love, grace, and mercy in Christ. Paul’s spirit-shattering encounter and the time he spent with Jesus, learning God’s truth, forged him into the disciple who wrote most of the New Testament. Paul’s life gives us a clear path to understand that we can live in the pure love of Christ and share his pure love with others.
Paul tells us. If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care—then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand. (Phil. 2:1-4, MSG)
Christ’s disciples cannot say they love him when they do not love others. Jesus tells us. “‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!” Matt. 25:40, NLT
Christ’s disciples are God’s beloved children. Being a child of God means we have God’s love living in us through the salvation of Christ. It means we are empowered to learn how to love others as Christ loves us in healthy ways, including healthy boundaries. Everything we need to love others is possible because Christ’s perfect love lives in us!
