The #1 one way that God wants us to treat one another in relationship is, Godly Relational Characteristic #10: LOVE one another! The type of love that God has in mind is a supernatural type of love. This supernatural type of love is something that we are to freely offer to others in relationship. 14 times in the New Testament (3 times more than any other “one another”), believers in Christ are told to “love one another”. Each of the 14 times believers are told to “love one another” the greek word αγαπη is used which means, “showing genuine CARE and CONCERN for others by SACRIFICIAL good deeds”. Αγαπη is supernatural because it is unconditional. Unconditional means we do sacrificial good deeds for others whether they have earned it or deserve it, we just do it, no matter what! Where do we get this type of love, what does it look like, and what does it accomplish?
Our ability to love ORIGINATES from our LOVE relationship with GOD (1 John 4:7-21) – God created us to reflect His image through a loving connection in relationship with others! In Genesis 1:26-27 God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness . . . So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” In this passage we see the individuality (“us” and “our”) and the connectedness in relationship (“he” and “him”) of God. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, although distinctly individual and different are intimately connected with one another. How are they connected to one another? 1 John 4:8 says that, “God is love”. The Father, Son, and Spirit are individuals who are connected by an intimate, close, unifying love between them. This divine relational “image” or “likeness” is what man was created in and designed after. 1 John 4:11 says, “If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another”. Being made in God’s image, God’s likeness, all of us individually are created for loving connection in relationship with others and without loving connection in relationship with others we fail to become who we are created to be (1 John 4:19).
Love is LAYING down our LIFE for another (John 15:12-17) – Of all the things we can do in relationship, the type of love that sits at the very top of the list is “laying down (our) lives for (our) friends”! There is NO GREATER type of love! If we are ever in doubt of what to do in relationship let this one question come to mind, what personal desire, opinion, or plan can I selflessly put to death right now in order to show genuine care and concern for another person? This type of love will work miracles in relationship. This type of love is extremely difficult to live out because it means putting aside our own will and interests in relationship to others. Jesus loved us in this way and we are to love others in this way as well (Phil. 2:5-11; 1 John 3:16).
Love is the primary way others will KNOW that we are DISCIPLES of Jesus Christ (John 13:34-35) – Jesus Himself declared that the most powerful way to communicate that we are fully devoted followers of Christ is by loving others! We do not display that we are disciples’ of Christ by going to church, reading our Bible, listening to Christian music, but rather how often and how well we show genuine care and concern to others by sacrificial good deeds! This means that in every loving (or unloving) interaction we have with another we are unveiling the genuineness of our relationship with Christ!
CONCLUSION
1 John 4:19 says, “we love, because He first loved us”! Without relationship with God we will never be able to give the supernatural, unconditional love that He wants us to give to others.
