Jesus, My Friend: Serving Each Other in Love

This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
1 John 4:9-12

For God so loved the world He gave His only begotten son, the very being of love, Jesus. Christ came not to judge the world but to save it out of His passionate love for us. Revelation of the passionate love of Christ is one of the greatest gifts a believer can have. To fully know you are loved and desired by the King of Kings is life-changing. Walking in that love grows your confidence and roots your identity in the right soil. 

As we grow in our understanding of Christ’s love for us, we fall more and more in love with Him. We receive His love, and it transforms us inside and out. It changes how we respond to people and situations and also, how we respond to Him. It begins to consume our lives, and we want nothing outside of Him. 

In John 15, Jesus is speaking to His disciples telling them that He is the exact representation of the Father, and that He will be going away but would send the Comforter. Further, he tells them to love one another and to remain in His love, living from the very root of His love. He goes on to say much more but adds this:

Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
John 15:13

Jesus knew that He was laying His life down for those He loves. He had already laid down so much to be born as a baby, submit to His earthly parents, live, sweat, and work on earth, and yet, He was willing to submit to even death on a cross. His love was the compelling force to take Him to such depths of pain, yet all for love. But then, He says more:

 
I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.
John 15:15

He tells the disciples that they are His friends after telling them that the greatest love a friend can show is to lay his life down for others. In verse 17, He commands them to love each other and to lay their life down for each other. More than that, He continues saying that if you love me, you will lay your life down for me, your greatest friend, and for others. 

​​This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
1 John 3:16

Friends, it is time for us to lay aside our selfish ambitions, to serve others, and to lay our lives down for Christ and for one another. With Christ, as our example, we should ask ourselves how can we wash the feet of those around us and serve them with a love that bears all things.

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
Philippians 2:3-4