Christian Living

How Did Jesus Love?

by J.W. Phillips
07/09/25
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How Did Jesus Love?

Jesus didn't just tell the disciples to love each other. He told them to love in the same way he loved. 

So how did Jesus love? There is a need to study his example in Scripture and look for clues. 

In studying the biblical record, we learn, for example, that Jesus chose his most intimate companions after a season of prayer.

Be Led by God

This suggests that we are not to be too casual, too spontaneous, too unreflective in our relationships. Since a careless choice of friends can result in spiritual disaster (I Corinthians 15:33), we should never deceive ourselves about this possibility, as if it doesn’t exist. 

A.W. Tozer wrote: “Better to have no friends and be an Elijah, alone, than to be like Lot in Sodom, surrounded by friends who all but damned him.”¹ 

One reason closer relationships are not to happen serendipitously is because if we function naturally instead of supernaturally, we may give ourselves to relationships the Lord never intended, while bypassing relationships he did intend. 

In choosing those people with whom we are to most intimately relate, we must get beyond natural likes and dislikes. The greater concern must be God’s plan for our life: How does he want to use us? How does he want to bless us?

While answers to these questions may be incomplete at first, we should at least check to see if the light is red or green. The main concern, always, is getting God’s direction for those relationships to which we should commit.

The second principle evident from Scripture is one easily overlooked in this context: Jesus lived a righteous life.

Set a Righteous Example 

I John 5:2 extends this principle when it says, “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments.”

This principle makes a lot of sense when we keep in mind that the believer who enjoys a wonderful intimacy with God, and is passionate to please him, is going to bring fire into relationships with others; whereas the believer drifting and distancing from God, living a callous, compromised life will bring icy, cold water into these relationships. 

Thomas Watson wrote, “A regenerate person abhors sin not only for the curse but for the contagion.”² The very idea that we could infect others by our allowed sin is deemed a detestable thought too disgusting to contemplate.

Third, we see in the example of Jesus and in the declaration of Scripture (I Corinthians 13:7) that love believes what God will do in people.

Believe in People

A.B. Simpson observed, “We have a God who is not looking for the evil in us but for the good.” Simpson added that God is “looking in every human soul for some place where the chain of mercy can fasten and lift us to the skies.”³ 

You will recall what Jesus said when he first met Peter. Addressing the literal meaning of his name, Jesus said, in effect, now you're a pebble, but you will become a large rock. This relationship began by Jesus voicing belief.  

Peter Marshall preached a sermon describing what would have occurred had the twelve appeared before a tribunal considering their nominations to apostleship. Why, Jerusalem was filled with learned rabbis and dedicated priests! Whatever did Jesus mean by choosing a tax collector and a bunch of rowdy fishermen!

Nevertheless, as unlikely as these men seemed for this high calling, the Lord’s faith was rewarded, even as history was changed, by their amazing impact. 

This is what believing in people can do. It can make the seemingly impossible become reality. Without this investment of belief, though, such an outcome may not occur. 

When it comes to the Christian friends we have, we are to love these person not by what we see, but by what God says. Remember: What we see may be repelling, but what God says is compelling.

This is always true, because the born-again believer has within his new nature the imparted righteousness of God—and no fault can be found with that! So look for the image of God in this difficult-to-like person and love that.

Seeing through biblically believing eyes is always a critical factor for maturing relationships. Although there were zigs and zags in the disciples’ progress, Jesus never wavered in his faith that God would indeed use these men in an extraordinary way. 

Fourth, as we think about how Jesus loved people, we can see that he wasn’t only a giver, but he was also a receiver.

Receive from People 

Jesus willingly received from people—from the woman at the well, from Mary and Martha, from the apostles. 

This is such an important principle to learn. Because if we won’t allow others to participate in our lives (thereby acknowledging the good they have to give), then they’re not going to desire what we have to give.

To always be the minister, the leader, the savior, is much too limiting; and in some ways its foundation is false. So why must we project this image of being all-sufficient?

Don’t we realize that if we allow others to help us, our stock won’t go down in their eyes? Instead, there will be a much greater incentive to receive from us, once the word is out that people won’t just be getting advice, they’ll be getting a relationship.

Fifth, to love as Jesus loves mean we will get self out of the way, lay down our life as a lifestyle, and sacrifice for their good.

Sacrifice for People

J.H. Jowett said, I must be “looking past what annoys and towards what will one day please God.  I must make the love of God available to this person by remaining available for God to use me.” 

What Jesus did for us on the cross is both an example and an encouragement. His love inspires our love as a reciprocal. To receive this love empowers us to give it.

Jesus’ love required faith. The most desperate post for his faith was that time on the cross when Jesus, mocked by men and forsaken by God, spoke those words, “My God.” 

The Bible says we are to love by faith, too (Galatians 5:6). We can't by grit and guile crank out this love.

There may be times when we may not feel love toward a person; and on our own may have no capacity to generate this love. So don’t be surprised by that. Just believe that God will supply the love he wants to flow at the time it needs to do so. If we step out in faith, the love of God will emerge, as will genuine feelings for this person. 

To love by faith includes following love's example to you. So love that person in the same way Jesus loved you when you were difficult to love. Recall those times when you were unmoved by teachings, testimonies, and truth. Do you remember what God did to change you? 

Well, if God could bear with you (which he did) and today his love indwells you (which it does), then you have to know firsthand how love works. So pass that on. 

The love chapter of the Bible, I Corinthians 13:7, tells how love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Sandwiched between the bearing and the enduring are hope and belief. You see, hope and belief are love links that enables bearing and enduring. 

Hope, a very robust term in the Bible, is the reservoir of those biblical promises we believe. Faith draws from hope's reservoir and makes its claim on one or more of these promises. 

We don't make up what we want to believe about another person. Doing that is a wish, or worse still a fantasy. Instead, we select certain biblical promises of what God can do in a believer's life—maybe it's patience nor some other virtue—so this will be part of what constitutes belief's “vision zone”.

When the moment is right, we may articulate to this person part of what is in our vision zone as an encouragement. When the moment is not right, we will pray from our vision zone as an intercessor for this person.

The point here is that if belief and hope aren't operating in tandem to supply faith, the bearing and enduring may fail. And love doesn’t fail (I Corinthians 13:8). 

Have you ever wondered why the world is going to know we belong to Jesus if we start loving each other?

Other groups also purport to love, but their love is natural in its source; whereas the Lord’s love in us flows straight from the heart of God.

It is only this love that proves the gospel works and that the sought-after kingdom is at hand. It is only this love that can convince the confused, heal the hardened, motivate the malcontent, and bring to the Father the very fruit worthy of his name.

John Owen said of the Church, “… if there be no love, the world has no reason to conclude that we are the disciples of Jesus Christ.”⁴

By necessity, evangelism requires the existence of this demonstrated love. This is a witness God used to draw converts into the church every day (Acts 2:47) and Jesus predicted would have the power to do this (John 13:34,35). 

Some may think the assignment is too high, the means for accomplishing is too little, that all this talk about love in the church is floating-in-the-clouds idealism, no more likely to be grounded in reality than those white, puffy clouds we admire above.

Yet Tertullian, the third-century theologian found this kind of love so real in his church that he declared, “The love amongst us is such, so great, that it is set as a mark and brand upon us.”⁵ 

While men can see a Lazarus raised from the dead and be a Christ-rejecter still, and can be given words of hope only to shun these with hardhearted disdain, these same men will find their cold, stony hearts strangely stirred whenever the love of the Lord makes its appeal.

Attempts to lecture them, coerce them, bedazzle them will never work, but as Alexander Maclaren said, if you “put upon them the silken leash of love … you may lead them where you will.”⁶ 

Jesus showed us how to do it, then gave us a new nature, his nature, so we could do it. So, will we?

Will we love as Jesus loved?

Notes:

  1. A.W. Tozer, The Tozer Pulpit, Volume 7, (Harrisburg, PA., Christian Publications, 1978), p.144.

  2. Thomas Watson, The Doctrine of Repentance, (Kindle Edition, 2010: Kindle location: 439).

  3. A.B. Simpson, But God, Kindle edition, 2010; Kindle locations: 334-336.

  4. John Owen, John Owen, The Collected Works of 22 Books, Kindle edition, 2011; Kindle locations:122970-122971.

  5. The Works of Thomas Goodwin, Volume I, (Lafayette, IN., Sovereign Grace Publishers, Inc., 2000), p.277.

  6. Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture: Isaiah and Jeremiah, Public domain, Kindle Edition, 2005: Kindle locations:6619-6620.