Love Like That
John 15 Series — Day 12 | John 15:12
📖 TODAY’S SCRIPTURE
John 15:12 (NIV) “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.”
Yesterday Jesus promised a joy so full it doesn’t depend on circumstances. Today we see where that joy leads — a heart abiding in His love cannot help but overflow toward others.
REFLECTION
When Jesus says “This is my command”, it is easy to wonder — is this new?
The disciples had heard Him speak about love before. When they asked Him about the greatest commandment, He gave a two-part answer: love God with everything you have, and love your neighbour as yourself (Matthew 22:37–39). Love God. Love people. That was the summary of the whole law.
So what is different here?
The standard. And the source.
As I have loved you. Not as you love yourself. Not as feels natural. Not as they deserve. As Jesus loved — humbly, sacrificially, at His own expense. Marvin Vincent points out that the Greek here carries a sense of ownership: the commandment which is mine. This is not a borrowed rule. Jesus is staking His name on it. Of all the things He could have commanded, He chose this.
Love is not a feeling. It is a decision.
Here is something worth sitting with on a Saturday morning: Jesus never commands us to feel something. He commands us to do something. And love — in His definition — is not primarily an emotion. It is a choice. A decision made in the direction of another person, whether it feels natural or not.
Most of us are waiting to feel loving before we act lovingly. But Jesus flips that. Make the decision. Take the action. And very often, the emotion follows the choice. Think about where your treasure is — and you will find your heart follows (Luke 12:34). When you begin to treat someone as worth investing in, something shifts. Not always immediately. But it shifts.
Q1: Is there a relationship in your life where you have been waiting to feel loving before you act lovingly? What would happen if you reversed that — acted first, and trusted the feelings to follow?
This is where it gets honest
I find it easier to love a stranger than to love the people I work with.
A stranger does not know my patterns. They have not said something that stayed with me for days. But the people I see every week — the ones who rub me the wrong way, who say the wrong thing, who make the same mistake again — something in me closes.
And this is exactly where John 15:12 lands most honestly. Jesus does not say love the people who are easy to love. He says love each other as I have loved you. He said that knowing Peter would deny Him, Judas would betray Him, and the rest would scatter when it mattered most.
He loved them anyway. Not because of their condition. Because of His.
As one commentator puts it, “Christians grow by caring for and nurturing each other.” Which means the relationships I find hardest are not obstacles to my growth — they might actually be the place where growth happens most.
Q2: Is there someone in your life right now — at work, in your community — who is genuinely hard to love? What would one small decision to love them look like today?
The world will know
Jesus said it plainly in John 13:35 — “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Not by what we believe. Not by how often we go to church. By how we love each other. That is what the world watches. And it is serious — because it means the most visible proof that Jesus is alive is not our theology. It is whether the people around us feel genuinely loved by us.
Q3: If the people you work with, live with, and spend time with were asked whether they feel genuinely loved by you — what would they say?
🌿 REMAIN IN HIM
Take a moment before you move on. This isn’t a to-do. It’s an invitation to stay.
Sit with the standard: “As I have loved you.” Not as they deserve. Not as feels easy. As Jesus loved. Think of one specific person and one specific way that standard asks something of you today.
Bring it to Jesus: Sit quietly and say: “Lord, I cannot love like You love from my own strength. But I do not have to manufacture it — I just have to stay close to You. Fill me with Your love, and let it overflow toward the people You have placed around me — especially the ones I find hardest.”
Trust the Gardener: This love is fruit. You do not strain for fruit — you stay connected to the vine. The more you abide in His love today, the more naturally His love moves through you toward others.
🙏 PRAYER
Lord, I confess that my love is often conditional — and often more of a feeling than a decision. I love well when it costs me nothing. And I pull back when it does.
But You loved me when I did not deserve it. At Your own expense. And now You invite me into that same love — not to manufacture it, but to receive it and let it flow.
Help me make the decision today. Toward the person I find hardest. Toward the relationship I have quietly given up on. Not from my own condition — but from Yours.
In Your name, Amen.
💡 MEMORY VERSE
John 13:35 (NIV) “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Tomorrow Jesus will show us exactly what “as I have loved you” looks like at its highest — “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” The standard He sets today, He defines tomorrow.
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