“This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” John 15:12-13 NKJ
I have many friends and with my words I would say that I love them and that I would lay down my life for them. I would even say that I would lay down my life for a stranger if the situation required it. But is this a literal command from Jesus or something even greater? What did Jesus mean in this verse and how do we put action to our words, in regards to loving people to the point of laying down our life for them? This question always plagued me until the day I read Luke 10:20 – 37.
Jesus was asked what was required for a person to receive eternal life. Verses 20 – 29 says, “And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested Him, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?” So he answered and said, “ ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’and ‘your neighbor as yourself.’” And He said to him, “You have answered rightly; do this and you will live.” But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?””
Jesus then goes on to tell the parable of the Good Samaritan to give an illustration of what it means to love God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind, and what it means to love our neighbor as our self. The sacrificial love of the Samaritan is demonstrated in our lives through the actions that the love of Christ prompts in us. So the true act of laying down our life for a friend is in the love of Christ working in and through us to meet the needs of God’s people. And we have a choice to make. Do we ignore their need and walk around them like the priest and Levite did, or do we meet their need like the Samaritan did? And how do we know what their need is?
Again it is the love of God in us that prompts us to know and meet the needs of His people. It could be a spiritual need that we can meet in sharing the Gospel. It could be an emotional need that we can meet with a word of encouragement. It could be a physical need that we can meet by providing goods or finances. It could be a correctional need that we can meet by helping our friend come to a place of repentance for a fault they are in. There are many needs and only one person can meet those needs and that person is Jesus Christ. In order to fulfill Jesus’ commission to love each other as He loves us, to the point of laying down our life for our friends; we have to understand this truth. We can do nothing in our own strength.
Paul understood this best and tells us the key to success in walking out the commission of laying down our lives for our friends. In Galatians 2: 20 he says, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” When we embrace this truth we will be able to direct the focus of our minds to loving God with all that is within us and then His Spirit will prompt us in discerning how to meet the needs of His people.
So the true act of laying down our lives for our friends is in embracing what Jesus did for us on the Cross when He laid down His life for us. Understanding this sacrificial love is what will empower us to lay down our life and meet the needs of God’s people. I want to encourage you to spend time in prayer and meditation so God can reveal the areas of your heart and mind that may not be solely focused on loving Him with all that is within you. Ask Him to give you the heart of the Samaritan so you can begin to allow the Holy Spirit to help you discern the needs of His people, and to show you how to meet them. If you will do these things then God will be faithful and He will reveal Himself to you in an intimate way that will change your life and the lives of the people around you forever.
Prayer: Let me come to the place of fully understanding Your great and mighty love for me through embracing what Christ did for me at the Cross. As I meditate on this sacrificial love may I fully embrace that Christ in me is the hope of glory that You want me to share with others. One way of sharing this hope is through meeting their needs. May my mind be fixed on You so that I do not miss the opportunity to be the Samaritan in the lives of the people around me. I praise You for loving me so much that You would sacrifice Your own Son so that I could live, and so my life can be a testimony of that love. Amen
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