Love is Discipleship
Followers of Jesus love God and others actively. A disciple is one whose life is pervaded by love. Training in discipleship is training in becoming a loving person just like Jesus.
Divine love is Jesus dying on the cross to win victory over death, to atone for sin, and to bring a new reality into our world. And let’s not miss the point that his life is as much a portrait of love as his death is.
Love is often coupled with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiving others to name just a few companions of love (Colossians 3:12-14).
Truth is love’s next-door neighbor (v. 9). By love, we drop prejudice and see all others as God sees them without man-made distinctions (10-11).
The capstone of life with God is love (Romans 5:5 and 2 Peter 1:7). And the grand lists of love are in Galatians 5:22 and 1 Corinthians 13, where love sits as the regal queen presiding over her realm of other virtues.
Training in discipleship must first be training to live pervaded by love in the home, at work, in every word and every deed. Anything less than that is not discipleship.
Apparently, we can excel in skills of singing, preaching, leading, teaching, and doing good without love (1 Cor 13:1-3). Without love it amounts to harmful noise.
Take some of the Pharisees, for example, who kept the laws of Sabbath sans love.
One Sabbath, a day of rest and goodness, Jesus healed a man whose body was rotting by the pool of Bethesda. (John 5:1-16). The Pharisees, knowing he was a cripple, were unkind and unloving toward him seeing him sauntering down the street on brand new legs.
By contrast Jesus sought the man, questioned him about wanting to be healed, saw him with eyes of compassion, felt his pain, and did for him what grace always does: act lovingly.
Their elaborate rule keeping kept them from seeing a premier act of love. Apparently, gentleness, healing, valuing, or deliverance on the Sabbath sent them into a tizzy. And there were more instances like that. Can you imagine how frazzled they were by lack of love?
Sacrificial Love feeds the poor, visits prisons and sheds love among hardened and hopeless hearts. Love travels to the ends of the earth to bring relief (a kind of love) in times of disasters to those who suffer great loss. Love prefers others, shuts up if has nothing good to say. Love is the engine of the gospel.
The church specializes in love as Jesus did. In 165 during a time of epidemic, Christians stayed and died caring for the sick, while the rich fled to the countryside villas. Diognetus reflects on this: “We have progressed a lot, thanks to God and the work through generations. But the attractiveness of Christians comes with their lives. They don’t get divorced, take care of their sick, worry for others, they have children with mental and physical deficiencies and these are accepted with cheerfulness.” (Letter to Diognetus)
The Lover of our souls, and the Beloved said, “They will know you by your love” (John 13:35). Doesn’t it make sense that discipleship to Jesus should be training to be fruitful and abide in love.
Keep track of acts of love you receive and initiate for a month. Then assess if your life is pervaded by love.