As I Have Loved You

I've been trying to figure out what it means to love someone as Christ loves them. Through all my learning over the past couple years, I've realized that my definition of love has some major flaws, and I've been trying to replace it with a more truthful definition and understanding of what it means to love someone in a Christlike way. I read John 15:9-12 the other day, and it added some illumination to the topic for me, or at least some food for thought:

9 As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.

10 If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.

11 These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.

12 This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.

So, Christ has loved us the way the Father has loved Christ. I tried to think about how Heavenly Father showed His love for Christ. He basically sent Him to earth and asked Him to do some really hard things. He taught and strengthened and supported Him as He completed His earthly mission, but when Christ asked, when faced with His ultimate challenge of the atonement, of taking on Him the sins and suffering of all of God's children, that if possible that bitter cup be removed from Him, Heavenly Father did not show His love by removing the burden Christ had to bear. Rather, He sent an angel to strengthen Christ that He might bear it, and asked Him to go forward and complete His earthly mission, despite the extreme personal suffering it caused Him. Heavenly Father knew that Christ had the strength and ability to do what needed to be done, and that all of God's children, including Christ, would be blessed by His willingness to make this sacrifice on their behalf. After Christ's earthly mission was complete, Heavenly Father exalted Christ and gave Him all He had.

It is when we obey God's commandments like Christ did, even when obedience to those commandments requires great personal sacrifice for us, that we will "abide in His love." Christ explains this connection between God's love and how we can access His love through obedience to His commandments "that [Christ's] joy might remain in [us], and that [our] joy might be full." Christ Himself experienced God's love for Him and obtained a fullness of joy as He sacrificed throughout His life to serve God and to accomplish what God sent Him to earth to accomplish. We, likewise, can feel God's love for us and find a fullness of joy in our lives as we sacrifice to serve God and His children and keep His commandments. 

This scripture gives Christ's commandment to love one another as He has loved us, and as Heavenly Father has loved Him, a new meaning for me. We are to love and support and strengthen one other through the trials of this life and help bear one another's burdens, as Heavenly Father helped Christ bear His burdens and how Christ helps us bear ours. If we are to help people fully feel God's love and find a fullness of joy though, we must also help them turn to Christ, teach them of God's commandments, and encourage them to keep them, even if they must sacrifice to do so. That is the path Christ has shown us that will allow us to abide in God's love and receive a fullness of joy. It is the way Heavenly Father showed His love for Christ, the way Christ shows His love for us, and the way we must show love for one another: by teaching God's children His commandments, which He gave us because of His great love for us and His desire to help us reach our full, divine potential, and then supporting and strengthening God's children as they strive to turn to God and follow His commandments, forgiving them freely when they fall short, as Christ forgives us freely, and encouraging them in their continued efforts to carry out God's plan and mission for them in this life and become who He knows they can become, that He might be able to exalt them and give them all He has, and that their joy might be full. So interesting.