Learning to Love Like Jesus: A Challenge for Every Christian

Dear friends, if you were to ask the average person on the street to define the word love, you would get a hundred different answers. Our culture tells us that love is a feeling, a romantic spark, or a wholesale endorsement of whatever someone else wants to do.

But as followers of Christ, our definition of love isn’t found in a dictionary or a Hollywood movie. Our definition of love is a Person.

In the upper room, just hours before He would be betrayed, Jesus gave His disciples a new mandate: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34-35, NIV).

Notice that Jesus didn’t just say “love people.” He said, “Love as I have loved you.” That shift changes absolutely everything. It is the greatest challenge, and the highest calling, of the Christian life.

The Characteristics of Christ-Like Love

When we look at the life of Jesus, we see a love that radically contradicts human nature. Christ-like love (the Greek word agape) is not a passive emotion; it is a gritty, active, and sacrificial choice.

• It is unmerited: Jesus didn’t wait for us to clean up our act before He loved us. The Apostle Paul reminds us, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8, NIV).
• It is sacrificial: Jesus washed the dirt-caked feet of the very men who were about to abandon Him. True love always costs us something—our time, our pride, or our resources.
• It is truthful: Jesus never compromised the truth, but He always delivered it with perfectly calibrated grace.

As the late pastor Timothy Keller profoundly stated:

“To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God.”

The Challenge of Loving Difficult People

It is remarkably easy to love people who are just like us—people who agree with our politics, laugh at our jokes, and treat us well. Jesus Himself pointed out that even tax collectors and pagans do that (Matthew 5:46).

The true test of our faith happens when we encounter the abrasive coworker, the toxic family member, or the neighbor whose yard signs make our blood boil. Yet, Jesus commands us: “But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44, NIV).

The social activist and devout Christian Dorothy Day once penned a deeply convicting thought:

“I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least.”

Loving difficult people does not mean allowing yourself to be abused, nor does it mean pretending destructive behavior is acceptable. It means choosing to see the image of God in someone who is acting like your enemy, and desiring their ultimate redemption over your own vindication.

A Story of Love in Action

I recently heard a beautiful story from a woman in our broader church community. A new neighbor had moved in next door—a man who was notoriously grumpy, aggressively protective of his property line, and quick to yell at her children if a stray ball rolled into his yard.

Her natural instinct was to build a taller fence and ignore him. Instead, she felt the Holy Spirit nudging her to lean in. Every Friday, when she baked bread, she wrapped up a warm loaf, walked to his door, and left it on his porch with a simple note: “Thinking of you.”

For six months, there was no acknowledgment. Then, one rainy Tuesday, he knocked on her door. He was in tears. He confessed that his wife had died exactly six months prior, and his anger was just a mask for devastating, isolating grief. He told her, “Your bread is the only reminder I have that anyone knows I am still alive.” That small, persistent act of love cracked open a hardened heart and paved the way for a beautiful friendship.

Practical Applications in Daily Interactions

How do we begin to live this out in the ordinary moments of our week?

1. Assume the Best: In a culture quick to cancel and assume malicious intent, giving someone the benefit of the doubt is a radical act of love. Choose to be un-offendable.
2. Listen to Understand, Not to Reply: True listening is a rare and precious gift. When someone is speaking, put your phone away, look them in the eyes, and seek to understand their heart before offering your opinion.
3. Serve in the Shadows: Find a way to bless someone without them ever knowing it was you. Pay for the coffee of the person behind you in the drive-thru. Take out your neighbor’s trash cans. Love thrives in the unseen spaces.

Going Deeper: Recommended Reading

If you want to stretch your heart and learn to love more like Jesus, I highly recommend adding these books to your nightstand:

• Everybody, Always by Bob Goff – A hilarious, deeply moving, and immensely practical book about what happens when we stop playing it safe and decide to love the difficult people in our lives.
• Love Walked Among Us by Paul E. Miller – A phenomenal, up-close look at exactly how Jesus interacted with people, showing us how to mirror His compassion and truth.
• The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis – A timeless classic that brilliantly unpacks the different types of love and how God’s divine love elevates them all.

An Encouraging Thought

Brothers and sisters, looking at the perfect love of Jesus can sometimes make us feel incredibly inadequate. We will lose our patience. We will hold grudges. We will fail.

But hear this encouraging truth: You cannot pour from an empty cup. You are not called to manufacture this love on your own. The only way we can love like Jesus is to continuously soak in His love for us. As 1 John 4:19 (NIV) simply states, “We love because he first loved us.”

If you are struggling to love someone today, stop trying harder. Instead, run to the Father. Ask Him to fill you so completely with His staggering, unconditional grace that it cannot help but spill over onto everyone you meet. You are deeply loved—now go and be that love to a hurting world.