"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."
John 13:34-35

One thing puzzles me about our Christianity today. In our churches we place emphasis on many different things- faith, holiness, evangelism, spiritual gifts and power, healing, miracles, unity, knowledge and wisdom, etc. Our pastors preach on a huge variety of subjects. But somehow, love is very seldom mentioned. I have yet to see a church say "Our vision for this year is to love our fellow humans..." Similarly, when Christians talk about their focus and goals for the year ahead, very seldom do I hear anyone say "My vision for this year is to love people..." Why is it so hard to find a Christian song or hymn about loving people? How many of the Christian books on sale today are about loving people?

This is very puzzling to me because the more I read and meditate on the Bible, the more I am convicted that love is the supreme virtue, the most important one of all. Let me show you why I believe so-

In the Bible many adjectives are used to describe God. God is almighty, God is just, God is faithful, God is holy, etc. But there is only one noun that is used to describe God- and that noun is love. "He who does not love does not know God, for God is love." 1 John 4:8. Reflect upon that for a moment- John did not write, God is loving. He wrote, God is love. Love is not just a characteristic of God, love is the very nature of God.

When Jesus was asked what was the greatest commandment in the law, what did he reply? "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ' You shall love your neighbour as yourself.'" Matthew 22:37-39 Before He died, in His parting speech to His disciples, He told them, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another." John 13:34. He was not really giving a new commandment, for it had been given before (see Leviticus 19:18). He was emphasizing to them what was most important, what actually was the summary of the entire law.

There were some who grasped this concept; one was the lawyer who tested Jesus.

"On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" "What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?" He answered: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'" "You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live." Luke 10:25-28


The apostle Paul understood this too-

"Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not steal," "Do not covet,"and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law." Romans 13:8-10

Isn't that amazing? 613 precepts given to Moses in the original law can be summed up in just one sentence, one breath. "Love the Lord your God... and your neighbour as yourself." Love is the fulfillment of the law. It is not just a New Testament concept, as many think. Love was taught right from the beginning.

There were others in the Bible who understood the primacy of love, its importance as the supreme virtue. The apostle Peter:

"For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." 2 Peter 1: 5-8

Love, the crowning virtue. I think the no one sums it up better than the apostle Paul-

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,but have not love, I gain nothing...
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."
1 Cor 13:1-3, 13

Tongues, prophecy, faith, generosity, self-sacrifice- all these things, and others, that we value so much in our churches today, are nothing if we do not have love.

The message for us is clear- if we want to be like Christ, then the most important thing to learn is love. For love is the very nature of God. That's why Jesus said, "By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." He didn't say, if you have faith, if you have knowledge, if you have wisdom. The hallmark of a true Christian is love. The apostle John understood this, and his letter is one of the finest passages on love in the whole Bible. "God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him." 1 John 4:16. "Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." 1 John 4:7-8

Love who? Jesus made it clear, love God, and our neighbour. The two are inseparable. We cannot solely love God, and not our neighbour. "If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother." 1 John 4:19-21.

That is why Jesus mentioned both loving God and loving our neighbour in one breath. And who is our neighbour? That is the question that the lawyer who tested Jesus asked, and Jesus replied with the parable of the Good Samaritan which we are all familiar with. (Luke 10:25-37). The Samaritan and the robbed Jew had never met before, their meeting was purely by chance. But yet they are neighbours. Who is our neighbour? Anybody who walks the face of this earth, that we meet whether by chance or not.

And what does it mean to love our neighbour as ourselves? 13th Century Rabbi Nahmanides said about this verse, "One should place no limitations upon the love for the neighbour, but instead a person should love to do an abundance of good for his fellow being as he does for himself." We have no hesistation in doing good for ourselves, and we do not limit that. Would we do the same good for others as for ourselves?

Which brings me to my next point- with all this staring at us out of the Bible, why is it then that we still have not gotten the point? I suspect one reason is this. When we talk about faith, hope, wisdom, knowledge, spiritual gifts and power and other aspects of our spiritual life, they all have something in it for us. Grow in faith and you can move mountains, grow in hope and you will have inner joy and security all your life, grow in wisdom and knowledge and you will better know how to live; grow in spiritual gifts and power and you can serve the Lord better. Who wouldn't want all that!

But you see, the emphasis is on ourselves. Love is the only one that requires us to seemingly empty ourselves of all self-interest, to look completely beyond ourselves to another human being, and care about that human being with no thought for self. "Love... is not self-seeking" 1 Cor 13:5. Worse still, it may require some sacrifice on our part, and we may not get any appreciation or reward for it. Jesus healed ten lepers, only one returned to thank Him. In modern economic terms, it is not a worthwhile investment at all.

But notice I used the word seemingly above. Because I believe that love is actually not a burden, not a chore, not a poor investment, but a blessing. We have been trained in this individualistic world to think that happiness is defined by what we can get for ourselves. Achieve our dreams, accumulate wealth, find pleasures, etc. But Jesus' thinking was different- His joy was defined by what He could do for others. Paul wrote,

"If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others."
Phil 2:1-4

He goes on to say,

"Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross!"
Phil 2: 5-8

Jesus could have stayed with His Father in heaven instead of coming down to earth. He could have retained the glory He shared with His Father for Himself. Yet He gave it up willingly, to come down and die for us- why? Because He loved us, and He loved His Father and wanted to do His will. Why did the Father send His only Son to die for us? "For God so loved the world..." John 3:16. What about us? Are we willing to, instead of accumulating and retaining things for ourselves, give and sacrifice for others?

And what a joy it is to love! After washing His disciples' feet, a job at that time reserved for the lowliest of lowly servants, Jesus said, "If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them." John 13:17. What? Blessed are we if we stoop down, washing our fellow man's feet, enduring the smell, getting our hands all dirty? Blessed are we if we sacrifice our honour and dignity and stoop to serve? Blessed are we if we give up our rights like He did and become a lowly servant? But that's what he said!

It defies all logic. Blessed are we if we put the interests of others above our own, to the point of sacrifice? It flies in the face of worldly wisdom. But I believe that if we really were to try, we would find that it is true. For a long time I myself have been very self-centred, living for myself, to satisfy my own desires and cravings for worldly pleasures. I set a limit on how much time I would give to others, and the rest I kept strictly for myself. But I was not happy. On the contrary, I found that the more I got for myself, the more I wanted, and it was a vicious cycle that was at times very frustrating, because I was never content.

I suspect that a lot of the unhappiness that we face today is a result of the fact that we are too inward-looking. We are constantly concerned and worried about ourselves- can I make my life more perfect? Am I getting the most that I can? How come there are these problems in my life? Why can't I get what I want? When we are too focused on ourselves, we will never be happy because there is no end to what the human heart can desire, and there is no end to the problems that we face in our lives.

I suggest we try this- be content with what God has given us already, trusting that He will always provide and help us through our lives as He has promised, and then turn our eyes away from ourselves to others. Start caring about them, instead of ourselves, for a change.

And we will find that there is a joy that comes that can't be explained. And I will not seek to explain it with words here, because I believe this must be experienced in real life to be understood. This is exactly why Jesus said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." Acts 20:35. What a profound truth.

Just a side note- to some it may sound like I am advocating loving for the sake of the joy that we will get in return. But this approach is fundamentally flawed, because the moment we try to love with the view of getting something in return, then we are not loving at all. "Love... is not self-seeking" 1 Cor 13:5. It is when we live out the agape, the selfless, self-sacrificial love of God, that this joy will come.

Another point- I am not dismissing the other aspects of our spiritual lives that I mentioned earlier. They are all very important, and we are commanded by God in various parts of the Bible to pursue them. I am just trying to say that we should not miss out on the most important one of all, love, because the hallmark of a true Christian is love. And as Paul says, if we have all the other things but have not love, we are nothing. Why did the 13th century Christians make war on the Muslims in the Crusades? They had religious zeal and fervour, but they forgot love.

The Hard Rock Cafe motto is a good reminder for us- "Love all, serve all." As we head into the new year and make our resolutions, may I encourage us all, including myself, to make love for God and man our priority, not just for a year, but for a lifetime. Reach out to your fellow humans in love, and you will find that life becomes so much more meaningful and full of joy. And in doing so, you are becoming like Christ Himself.