Richard Burgess, 16.10.2026
Jesus commanded us to love one another:
“I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples.” John 13:34,35.
Whoever we are, wherever we are, we were made to love… love is built into our very DNA because we’re made in the image of God who is and has been a loving community of being, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit from all eternity, lose that and we lose love itself. We were made in the image of God to live and dwell in love.
Love is the most powerful thing and essential for human survival. Lose it and the world becomes a hostile place, a foreign environment.
Many years ago the British pop group the Beatles sang, “all you need is love…” repeating it over and over again, to which we might say, true. Yet the song is devoid of any understanding of love. Why? Because it was designed to be as broad, welcoming and inclusive as possible.
The problem is there’s a whole lot of so-called “loves”/missguided love out there that are just plain wrong…
Conditional/performance/transactional oriented love – I will love you if… it’s a love that is gained and maintained by earning.
Lust based love – love that sees the other as an object to satisfy their own desire, rather than a person to be loved for who they are.
Free love – the idea that so long as you love, anything goes – think of the 1960s, something we are still feeling the effects of…
Feeling-oriented love – love that’s rooted solely in our emotions. So we fall in love and just as easily fall out of love.
Controlling love – where the emphasis is on authority and submission. Think Captain Von Trapp in the Sound of Music. As if love was the blowing of a whistle and barking orders.
Unboundaried love/love without boundaries – where we become doormats for the kingdom… and others people’s agendas…
Sentimental love – a love that’s all gooey and ignores the facts. Very often seen in films. A love without substance.
Narcissistic love – superficial, transactional attachment. It’s all about them, rather than genuine love and care for the other. More in love with their own feelings about another, than the person themself.
Self-abandonment dressed up as love/grace.
Maybe you find one of those describes you, if so, can I encourage you to recognise it and take it to God in order that you might learn what true love is. If necessary, you might find it helpful to talk to someone about it.
So what is love?
The problem is that in modern English we only have one word for love, which is very frequently used to express an emotional state whereas in Greek different words are used to express relationships and comparison.
The Bible speaks of five types of love:
Affection (storge – pronounced stor-gee). Family love. Natural love/affection. Mother/ father and child
Friendship (philia – fill-ee-uh), brotherly/sisterly love. Sibling love. Philia is love between friends, it’s affectionate, loyal, and relational. It’s the love that is built on shared experiences, mutual encouragement, and genuine care. We see it in the story of David and Jonathan.
Romantic (eros). Unfortunately this word has changed in meaning (erotic), but refers to the concept of Being in love. The word is not used in scripture but it’s there – think Song of Solomon.
Self love (philautia – phil-LAW-tee-uh) “Love your neighbour as yourself.” The Bible assumes a healthy self love. Healthy, as opposed to unhealthy. Recognising you are deeply loved and valued. Involves caring for your physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. Such love, sets healthy boundaries. It knows when to say, no.
Love/charity (agape – ah-gah-pay). This is the word that occurs in John 13:34,35: “I give you a new command: Love (agape) one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples.”
Now some might say, the command to love doesn’t sound very new, others have recognised and exhorted us to love – true. The Old Testament says, “Love your neighbour as yourself” (Lev 19:18) – a passage Jesus frequently quoted…
But Jesus invested this word with new meaning, and the early Christians took ownership of it. The Greek word translated “love” here in John 13, is “agape”; and the meaning that Jesus filled it with, was himself. He says: “just as I have loved you.” He is the true model and plumline for love.
It’s at the heart of all that Jesus says and does, from his incarnation to his death on the cross. From the Sermon on the Mount to his healing of the sick. Jesus lived and taught what it is to truly love. Earlier in the chapter Jesus demonstrated it by washing the disciples feet (John 13:1-15). Something that shocked them, that they thought was below his dignity. The cross would demonstrate the ultimate reaches or extent of his love.
So John says in 1 John 3:16, “We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters… (then in 4:10) This is real love – not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.”
Agape love then is the highest, most unconditional form of love, involving a conscious choice of the will to seek the well-being or good of others whether they deserve it or not. It is a love that is self-sacrificing, unearned and unconditional and does not look for something in return. More still, it transcends fleeting emotions, fear, or adrenaline driven responses. It is the ‘goodness’ that goes beyond ordinary human goodness. A love that should become our central point of reference and the core of our personality.
1 John 4:7-12 NLT: “Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.
Love in scripture is both a command and a fruit. The command to love exists in both the Old and New Testament. Paul also speaks of it as an aspect of the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22).
I Corinthians 13 is probably the most read description of love. It’s some chapter! As a test you could put your own name in where it says ‘love’, ‘……. is patient…’ etc. and ask how true is that? Or you could put Jesus in, ‘Jesus is patient…’ etc.. and discover that it describes the way he loves.
Now it would be easy to look at this and think this is a command, a law, much like some do the Sermon on the Mount. No, this is a description of what true love looks like and such love is found in knowing the one who is love.
Love seeks the best for the other, it lifts up and doesn’t pull down, it encourages and strengthens and does not weaken. It cares when the other can’t. It goes the extra mile.
Now, you might think there’s no way we can fulfill that; and you’re right, we need the Holy Spirit.
What do we do when we feel we don’t have it?
Illustration: Laying Concrete…
1. We create the formwork: we construct the formwork by being rooted in God’s word, exercising our will and acting upon truth and the need before us. We choose to love and do what is loving. We fulfill the command.
2. Then we trust the Holy Spirit to fill out the formwork. As we do so we trust the Holy Spirit to be at work in us and through us; we look to him to fill out the formwork with the reality. We bear the fruit.
Eph 5:1, 2 tells us, “Be imitators of God, as dearly loved children, and walk in love, as Christ also loved us and gave himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God.”
“Let us love one another, for love comes from God,” 1 John 4:7
“Be devoted to one another in love. Honour one another above yourselves.” Rom 12:10
“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers a multitude of sins.” 1 Peter 4:8.
What challenges do you find to love?
