12 This is my commandment: love each other just as I have loved you. 13 No one has greater love than to give up one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 I don’t call you servants any longer, because servants don’t know what their master is doing. Instead, I call you friends, because everything I heard from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You didn’t choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you could go and produce fruit and so that your fruit could last. As a result, whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you. 17 I give you these commandments so that you can love each other.
Reflection
What Jesus taught is not hard to understand. It is hard to do.
Jesus tells the disciples to love one another as he has loved them. At first, that sounds familiar, even gentle and reassuring — until we remember where this story is headed. “No one has greater love than to give up one’s life for one’s friends.”
Jesus’ vision of love is demanding. It is a love willing to give, to sacrifice, even to suffer for the sake of another. That’s no small ask.
G.K. Chesterton once wrote: “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”
Praise God that most of us will probably never be asked to die for our friends. But we are asked, every day, to lay something down: our pride, our convenience, our need to win, our instinct to put ourselves first.
And sometimes people do choose even greater sacrifices. Every day, we hear stories of people donating kidneys, caring for loved ones at enormous personal cost, or risking their own safety to protect strangers. Love like that is possible. It happens all the time.
The question is whether we are willing to move in that direction ourselves.
What are you willing to lay down for love?
by Joe Monahan
For Pondering and Prayer
Jesus said: “love one another as I have loved you.” Who in your life has loved you like that? How can you pay that kindness forward?
Prayer: Lord, help us to choose love – even when it’s inconvenient, even when it’s costly. Remind us that this is your will for us in Christ Jesus. Amen.
This devotional was written with editorial assistance from OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
