Read John 13:1-35
"By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (v35).To be in love with Jesus is to become as He is. That is, our love for Christ is manifested not only in our willingness to live as He did, but also to sacrifice for the sake of the other.
Participating in the will of God occurs when through the Holy Spirit, Christ becomes the pattern of our life, when He becomes our first love. As Paul writes:
“Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Eph 5.1-2).A life that has this world as its first love seeks peace and hope in the comforts of the world. But a life in love with Jesus stands in stark contrast to a life lived in love with the world. For the truth of the Christian faith is that peace and hope are only found in the One who is peace, the One who is hope.
Jesus does not tell us that life is all about comfortability, and yet in Christ we find comfort. Jesus does not tell us that life is all about the easy road and yet in Christ we find that His yoke is easy, and His burden is light. To have Jesus as our first love is to live out His love for the sake of the world. To have Jesus as our first love is to not only remember that audacious claims of Scripture that tell us how Jesus joyfully “endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God," (Heb 12.2), but more importantly, to embrace and embody the way, the truth and the life of Christ by running “with endurance the race that is set before us” by looking to and loving fully the author and perfecter of our faith—Jesus Christ.
To love Christ is to live sacrificially and in so doing you will receive generously the joy of life! Who do you love?
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