John 15:12-13
This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.  Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

Could we ever find a greater love than that of Christ?  Jesus would soon prove to His disciples just how much He loved them and how He loved them by going to the cross and dying for them.  Love with Jesus wasn’t just about talk.  It was all action.  Jesus didn’t have to gush over them with mere words of love because He showed them what love looked like.  And what He said to them through His crucifixion was, “I love you, and I love you more than Myself, and I would do anything and give everything for you.”  And since He died for all of mankind, He says those same things to us.

And Jesus’ love is a very personal love.  It comes to each of us in a unique way because we are all different and experience different things in our lives.  After His resurrection, Jesus had a conversation with Peter, asking him three times if he loved Him.  When Peter affirmed that he did, Jesus told Peter to feed His sheep.  In other words, Peter’s love, too, was to be demonstrated by his actions.  That reciprocal love between Peter and his Lord was to manifest itself in self-sacrifice and service to others.  It was to be demonstrated by obedience to God’s plan for Peter’s life.

So, how has Jesus loved us as individuals, and what does that show us about how we are to love others?  What personal experiences of God’s love have we had in our lives that can then prompt us to love others in that same way?  And what can we do to demonstrate to God how much we love Him?  Are we willing to make sacrifices and put others first?  Will we obey His plan and purpose for our lives?  Will we show our love to Him and others by doing things for them?

What a challenge to love like Christ loved when He demonstrated it in such a powerful way.  But it’s not like we have to go on and do these things in our own power.  His love abides with us, and it enables and equips us and works through us to touch other people’s lives.  This is Jesus’ commandment to each of us, so let us obey it in our lives by doing whatever we can to love others like He loves us.