Summary
Living the Life: Love
Everything in the Christian life eventually circles back to love. That can sound simplistic, even cheesy, until you start to see how vast the concept truly is in Scripture—and how it shapes the way we walk through ordinary days. The fruit of the Spirit called love is not a sentiment we generate on our own; it is the love of Christ, given to us, flowing outward to our neighbor. The aim of Living the Life - Love is to live in that transforming love so that we love our neighbor with the same radical love shown to us in Jesus.
Love Begins in the Triune God
Before love is a command, it is the very life of God. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit exist eternally in relation to one another—the eternal Father is Father because of the eternal Son—and this communion is one of perfect love. Through Jesus Christ, we are invited into that love. This is why 1 John 4:19 says, "We love because he first loved us." Our capacity to love God and neighbor is not self-generated; it is the overflow of being loved first.
The Command to Love One Another
In John 13:34, Jesus gives a new commandment: "Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another." The standard is not affection or convenience—it is the cross. Christ's love is shown by laying down His life. We are not called to be Jesus, redeeming the world by our own sacrifice, but we are given the ability, by the Spirit, to love sacrificially. Jesus prays in John 17 that the very love with which the Father loves Him would be in His disciples, and that He Himself would be in them. That indwelling is what makes neighbor-love possible.
Nothing Separates Us From This Love
Sin tainted the love God intended for creation, but God rescued us by love itself. John 3:16-17 reminds us that the Son was sent not to condemn but to save. And in Romans 8:35-39, Paul piles up every conceivable threat—tribulation, persecution, famine, sword, death, life, angels, rulers, things present and to come—and declares that none of them can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
Set this beside the Ten Commandments, every one of which we have broken, and the gospel becomes startlingly clear: not even our own failures can sever us from Christ's love. He came for "the stinkiest of the stinkies"—touching, holding, healing them. That is His love, and it does not let go.
Loving the Neighbor Sacrificially
Because Christ has loved us this way, 1 John 3:16-18 presses the question: will we lay down our lives for the brothers? Will we love to the point of inconvenience? It is easy to love those who already love us; it is harder when the neighbor is the stranger, the difficult coworker, even the driver who cuts us off. The love we are called to is affirming, restoring, and forgiving—a love that seeks rather than waits to be sought.
Luther's Small Catechism captures this beautifully. Every commandment after the first begins, "We should fear and love God so that…" Out of love for God, I will not harm my neighbor. Out of love for God, I will not betray my spouse. The commandments are no longer a crushing burden but the natural shape of a life rooted in God's love. Loving the neighbor becomes a pleasure, not a duty, because it is Christ's love at work in us.
Love in Ordinary Saints
Most of us will not be asked to die for our neighbor, but every day offers small occasions to love. A teacher who refuses to bend the rules but stretches her role to befriend a difficult student; a grieving mother who, having just lost her own baby, nurses a neighbor's child during wartime—these are ordinary saints in whom the Spirit works to heal and restore the world. Christian love is "a silken scarlet thread that binds together the fabric of God's tapestry," constantly mending what sin tears apart.
In John 15:16-17, Jesus reminds us that He chose us and appointed us to bear fruit. When we ask the Father to open our eyes, He shows us where love is needed—and it is needed everywhere. We do not have to drum up love from within ourselves; the love of Jesus already abides in us. That is how we love our neighbors: not by our agenda, but by the love that has already been given.
Video citations
- Living the Life - Love — It's so good to be back. It was awesome being with the women last weekend. Really great, but it's really good to be back here with all of you that aren't women. And or that could not. Yeah. Or that…