“This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you” (John 15:12-14 NASB).
The Lord says, “Greater love has no one than this.” He continues and He talks about commitment, “that one lay down his life.”
There are a lot of ways that we can lay down our own lives for others. If you examine this carefully, you realize that there are different ways and different extents to which we love. There are levels of love.
Levels of Love
The Lord is saying, “Greater love has no man than this.” But what is the greatest love? It is a love that requires something of us, something oftentimes that is very difficult to give.
When we speak the word “love” in the English language, it is such a vast word that with every swing of a pendulum the definition changes. In the same breath someone can say, “I love you, honey, and oh, by the way, I love my cat.”
God is saying there are so many different levels of love. If we’re not careful, we can relegate ourselves to a mediocre level of love, a kind of love that is centered in the area below our waists. We carry that kind of definition of love into our marriages, into our families, and even into our relationship with God. Then we wonder why things are breaking down along the way.
There’s a greater love and there’s a lesser love. We need to find the levels in-between and say, “Lord, what is the greatest love of all?”
In fact, most of the time, we are taught a very selfish love. Television, the Hollywood screen, portrays a very selfish love. That’s why you can be in love one day and the next day, you ‘all out of love. It’s a selfish love.
It’s a love that says, “I love you if you love me; if you’ll make me feel good; if you’ll look good next to me; if you do this for me; if you meet all my expectations…”
Its a very selfish love.
“Now as to the love of the brethren…we urge you, brethren, to excel still more” (1 Thessalonians 4:9-10 NASB).
We got to learn the art of loving others – not a selfish love – but a self-less love.
“…I pray that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment” (Philippians 1:9 NASB).
Paul is saying, “I pray that your love would abound more in knowledge – real knowledge – and all discernment.”
He’s assuming that there is a love that we can settle for. A love that is without knowledge and that lacks discernment. He’s saying, “I’m praying that your love will abound more and more in real knowledge and all discernment.”
There are lesser levels of love that are not knowledgeable, and do not contain any discernment at all. It’s a lower level of love that we often tap into everyday. We think that because we saw that kind of love on a
When we take that into our walk with God, and our marriages and our families, everything starts falling apart. We’re settling for something far less. It’s a clone, and a cheap knock-off kind of love. It is not the God-kind of love; not at all.
I remember seeing these Oakley glasses when I was in
When I got back to the hotel, I took the glasses off. When I took it off, a lens popped out and broke, practically disintegrating. You know, I looked good from the street stall in Sukhumvit to the hotel. It cost me S$8 for that.
Oftentimes, we just settle for a cheap knock-off, a cheap clone of a love. We take that kind of love and we inject it into our lives, our families, our ministries. Our futures fall apart, our lenses fall out, our relationships fall apart and our families become fragmented.
Oh, how we need to understand the kind of love that is rooted in godly knowledge and discernment; a greater kind of love and excel in it more and more!
