Greater Love Has No Man

“These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. 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. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you.” (John 15:11–14)

These are the words of Jesus to His most intimate disciples on the eve of His death. What was His desire for them in these “final” words? Their joy—that His joy would become their joy, and that their joy would be full to overflowing.

What then is the joy of Christ? Loving His disciples; loving His friends. And not with just any love, but with the greatest love there is, a love that takes a man to the cross for the sake of those he loves.

And this then is our joy too: To love as He has loved. Such a love will take us to the cross as well—and if to the cross, then to every other suffering short of the cross.

Are we willing to die for others? Then we will be willing to learn patience with them as God in Christ has been patient with us. Are we willing to sacrifice our own lives for the sake of the life of others? Then we will be willing to live for others as well, learning what it is to be a servant to all just as our Lord Jesus is a servant to us His friends. Have we taken up our own cross as a disciple of Christ? Then we will give a cup of cool water in His name; we will bless even those who curse us; we will overcome evil with the good we do to others—even when they have done evil to us.

Indeed we serve God best as we learn to love and to serve one another. This is what it is to be the friend of God: to do whatever He commands you. His command? Love sacrificially in everything you do, everything you think, everything you say, everything you feel.

And what again is the outcome of such love? Nothing less than the joy of God—a divine joy we not only can know but that we can have to the full—only as we learn this great love that our loving Savior and Lord has shown to us.

“O Lord, please teach us to love one another. Make Your joy our joy, and make our joy full. We give You thanks for Your taking on the form of a bondservant and for humbling Yourself to the point of death for our sakes. Plant and grow and cause to flourish this great love in our hearts and in every facet of our lives, we pray in Christ’s name. Amen.”