Are You Willing to Love as Jesus Loved?

After encouraging His followers to abide in Him and keep His commandments, Jesus says…

‘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.

Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.’

We want the salvation bit but are we willing to truly follow Jesus, love as He loves and live as He lived – sacrificially?

Jesus laid down his life for us, His friends, are we willing to lay down our lives for Him?

Yes, some have to do that literally but I’m thinking today about the daily laying down of our lives for Him, the laying down of our desires and wishes, taking up our cross, crucifying self and following Jesus.

‘And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.

For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it.

For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away?’

How do we do this?

We abide! It’s by leaning into all that Christ is in us, surrendering our will to His and allowing Him to live through us.

Paul put it this way, ‘I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.’

Are we living lives surrendered to Jesus, abiding in Him and letting Him live through us? Because it’s the only path to true joy.

As Jesus said when He spoke about abiding in Him ‘These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.’

John 15:12-14, Luke 9:23-25, Gal 2:20, John 15:11

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