We Ought to Love
when we love one another, God’s love reaches its full effect in our lives.
By: Jeremy Case, Head of School
Monday, January 20 commemorates the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. As we celebrate his legacy and reflect on his pursuit of equality, justice, and reconciliation and the progress still to be made, we continue to find our hope in the radical love of our Savior who calls us to love one another.
In our school passage for this year, John reminds us that the love we are called to extend to others originates in God Himself and was made manifest on the cross.
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.”
1 John 4:7-12
The Greek word for love here is agape. Agape is the perfect love of God demonstrated in the gospel - His work on the cross for His people. It’s His unconditional love made manifest through who He is (God is love) and what He does (God sent His only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him).
Jesus brought God’s love into the world to reconcile His people to Himself
God loved us with the greatest love there is. It’s the inexplicable love that Jesus demonstrated on the cross:
Like the cross, true love is costly. In love, God gave His only Son.
“But he was pierced for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.”
Isaiah 53:5
Like the cross, true love is sacrificial. In love, Jesus endured the punishment our sin deserved.
“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
2 Corinthians 5:21
Like the cross, true love is selfless. In love, Jesus came to serve.
“Who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.”
Philippians 2:6-7
Like the cross, true love is unconditional. In love, God brought us the unattainable gift of salvation.
“But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Romans 5:8
Dr. King sought equality, justice, and reconciliation in his call to love one another
In 1962, Dr. King preached these words at Ebenezer Baptist Church, urging his congregation to rise to agape love:
“But when we rise to agape, to Christian love, it is higher than all of this. It becomes the love of God operating in the human heart. The greatness of it is that you love every man, not for your sake but for his sake. And you love every man because God loves him.”
Only through the cross can we rise to agape and love as we ought.
We ought to love
Costly, sacrificial, selfless, unconditional love is the love Dr. King proclaimed. It’s the love John describes. It’s the love our Savior calls us to show.
When we walk in His light and love God most, we have fellowship with one another. Only then can we love others best. Our greatest motivation for Christlike love is the cross. Likewise, our failures to love as we ought are rooted in a failure to understand the manifest love of God demonstrated on the cross.
Only when the cross of Christ grips us can we love as we ought. And when we love one another, God’s love reaches its full effect in our lives.
God shows up in our messy places and transforms ordinary moments into holy ones.