A New Kind of Love

"One Year Bible" New Testament Passage
John 13:31-14:14

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....Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through Me."  John 13:34-35 and 14:6 (NKJV)

LOVE is one of the most widely used, but often misunderstood concepts in human experience.  We could look at the gammut of meaning -- all the way from mindless approval and tolerance to physical lust.  Love can mean a soft kind of permissiveness or it can mean a passionate kind of obssession ("I just love _______" (fill in the blank). 

So what kind of love is Jesus talking about here?  We need a definition.  He not only gives us the definition, He embodies it.  It is a love that involves WAY, TRUTH, and LIFE. 

The WAY is the way of the Cross -- it is self-sacrificial.  It lays its life down.  It is not aimed at self-gratification or inward feelings, but instead gives itself away. 

It is filled with TRUTH.  It is rock hard with the authority of God's Word and God's character.  Love that degenerates to un-principled, standardless acceptance is really nothing more than passivity and weakness.  God's love flows out of His authority.  It is outlined in the bold light of truth. 

Lastly, God's love is LIFE.  It takes into consideration all the complexities of this bubbling thing we call "living."  It grows and becomes "life-giving" wherever it goes.  Like pure, clear, clean water filling a stagnant pond, God's self-sacrificial, authority-filled LOVE changes ever place it enters.

It is by this LOVE that Christ-followers are to be known.  This is what it means to live in the Kingdom of God.