Most of us think we already understand love. We say it about our families and our friends, and somewhere along the way we assume we have learned everything it has to teach us. But there is a kind of love that runs deeper than affection or preference, a love that has to be learned slowly and practiced on purpose. It is the love that was lived out in front of ordinary people, and it still has more to teach us than we expect.
Love Begins When We Remember What We Owe
In Luke 7, a woman with a bad reputation washes the feet of Jesus with her tears while a respectable host looks on with quiet contempt. To make sense of the scene, Jesus tells a short story about two people in debt. One owed a small amount, the other a large one, and neither could pay. When both debts were forgiven, he asked which person would love more. The answer was obvious, the one who had been forgiven more (). Then he said something we should not rush past, that the one who is forgiven little loves little ().
That is where real love starts, with an honest look at our own account before God. Scripture is clear that the wages of sin is death (), and none of us can settle that debt on our own. When we forget how much we have been given, our love grows cold and we become impatient with people who are still struggling. But when we remember that our forgiveness is ongoing, that he is faithful to forgive us when we confess (), gratitude keeps our love warm and generous.
Love Stoops Low
On the night before his death, Jesus rose from the table, laid aside his outer garment, wrapped a towel around his waist, and washed his disciples feet (). It was the job no one else wanted, the work everyone was content to leave undone. He told them plainly that he had given them an example to follow (). Love notices the thing others walk past, and it is willing to take the lower place. It serves people who may never repay the effort, and it does not wait to be thanked first.
Love Stays
What makes that basin of water so striking is who was in the room. Peter would deny him before morning. Judas would betray him within the hour. Every one of them would scatter that night, and he washed their feet anyway. Love like that is patient and kind, it keeps no record of wrongs, it bears all things and endures all things (). There is no greater love than to lay down your life for your friends (), and that same love shows up in smaller ways every day. It costs us our time, our pride, and sometimes our comfort, and it keeps serving even when the feeling is not there.
Love Changes Us
Two of the first disciples, James and John, once asked whether they should call down fire from heaven on a village that rejected them (). They were so angry they earned the nickname sons of thunder. Yet John is the same man who later wrote more about love than almost anyone in Scripture. Encountering this love does that to a person. It works like a mirror, showing us our anger and our selfishness so that Christ can strip them away. No wonder John would say, see what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God ().
The Love People Can Actually See
Jesus gave his followers a simple mark of identity. By this everyone will know that you belong to him, if you love one another (). The world may never see the private choices we make or the changes God has worked in us, but it will notice love at work among people who have every reason to be divided and are not. So the invitation is practical. Remember your debt and let gratitude soften you. Place your relationships beside the love you have received and ask where you need to stoop, to serve, or to stay. Then ask what your relationships are teaching the people around you about the One you follow. We do not simply learn to love. We learn to love like Jesus.