We know the Great Commandment tells us to love God with all we are and all we have, and that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. In John 15, Jesus explains that our love for others must be modeled on His love for us.

So, how has Jesus loved us? In the first place, verse 16 reminds us of the amazing truth that He chose us. And this choosing was not based somehow on our deserving – after all, He chose His twelve disciples, and on the very night that He spoke these words, one of them betrayed Him, one of them denied Him three times, and all of them abandoned Him. In the same way, we must choose to love others, even when and perhaps especially when they disappoint us and let us down. Love is therefore a choice, a firm commitment that is not dependent on our feelings.

And given that we are called to set our love on other undeserving sinners, love always involves sacrifice. Jesus said in verse 13 that true love requires abandonment of the self, putting aside our own wants and needs so that the needs of others can be met. Love is thus a determined choice to bless another, regardless of the cost to the self.

And in contrast to sin, which always drives people apart, love always brings people closer together. Jesus calls us His friends (15:14). He shares everything He has and knows with us (15:15). He empowers us by His Spirit to bear fruit in our lives, the fruit of love for others (15:16). He promises us that, because of our relationship with Him, the Father will hear and answer our prayers (15:16). He is thus involved in our lives in a deeply intimate way.

So, let us put aside our feeble Romantic notions of love as defined and determined by mere affection. Instead, let us love one another as Christ loved us – drawing each other close in self-sacrificial, unconditional commitment, and expressing that love by sharing all we know and all we have.

John 15:12-17 (NASB)

12 “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.
13 “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.
14 “You are My friends, if you do what I command you.
15 “No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.
16 “You did not choose Me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask of the Father in My name, He may give to you.
17 “This I command you, that you love one another.”