Jesus’ Preeminent Command is also God’s: Love

John 15:9-17 (AMP) 9 “I have loved you just as the Father has loved Me; remain in My love [and do not doubt My love for you]. 10 “If you keep My commandments and obey My teaching, you will remain in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and remain in His love. 11 “I have told you these things so that My joy and delight may be in you, and that your joy may be made full and complete and overflowing. 12 “This is My commandment, that you love and unselfishly seek the best for one another, just as I have loved you. 13 “No one has greater love [nor stronger commitment] than to lay down his own life for his friends. 14 “You are my friends if you keep on doing what I command you. 15 “I do not call you servants any longer, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you [My] friends, because I have revealed to you everything that I have heard from My Father. 16 “You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you and I have appointed and placed and purposefully planted you, so that you would go and bear fruit and keep on bearing, and that your fruit will remain and be lasting, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name [as My representative] He may give to you. 17 “This [is what] I command you: that you love and unselfishly seek the best for one another.

So, a person has the capacity to love because Christ loves them first and reconnects them to God Who is love...

(1 John 4:8-16 (AMP) 8 The one who does not love has not become acquainted with God [does not and never did know Him], for God is love. [He is the originator of love, and it is an enduring attribute of His nature.] 9 By this the love of God was displayed in us, in that God has sent His [One and] only begotten Son [the One who is truly unique, the only One of His kind] into the world so that we might live through Him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation [that is, the atoning sacrifice, and the satisfying offering] for our sins [fulfilling God’s requirement for justice against sin and placating His wrath]. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us [in this incredible way], we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has seen God at any time. But if we love one another [with unselfish concern], God abides in us, and His love [the love that is His essence abides in us and] is completed and perfected in us. 13 By this we know [with confident assurance] that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given to us His [Holy] Spirit. 14 We [who were with Him in person] have seen and testify [as eye-witnesses] that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses and acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 We have come to know [by personal observation and experience], and have believed [with deep, consistent faith] the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides continually in him.)

Without Christ, there may be some intellectual knowledge of God, but the true nature and love of God is not fully revealed until the person recognizes their inability to properly love because of selfishness (the sin of putting themselves above or not acknowledging God). They cannot truly love others because they love themselves more and are willing to sacrifice others (and God) to preserve themselves and put themselves first. “There is no greater love than one would lay down his life for another”, which Christ did for all of humanity at the cross. In this act, perfect love is modeled and revealed to mankind. Christ absorbed the wrath of God that is directed to any of His creation who do not bear His Holy Image. Upon recognition and reception of that love, salvation is activated for that person. God the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit then take up residence in that person and perfect love is released thru that person. The Word becomes flesh and dwells in and among humanity. We are recreated in the image of God.

All that to say, receive the gift of God in the salvation purchased for you in Jesus Christ and you will have the capacity to love unselfishly. In that capacity, you will obey the commandment not as an order, but as a joy. You will not be a “slave servant” but a friend of Jesus. A new creation.

A broken world longs and waits for “the revealing of the sons of God”. Be one :)