A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

John 13:34

Is love lighting the way in your marriage as you focus on reflecting God’s love in marriage? Sacrificial love transforms marriages.

Below is an adaptation of a meditation on 1 Corinthians 13. For the full teaching, scroll down to the video.

The commandment comes after Jesus had washed His disciples’ feet in the Upper Room. The cross was just hours ahead.

He asked, them, “Do you know what I’ve done to you?” John 13:13-17 sets the stage for this new commandment.

“You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. “For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. “Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. “If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.”

John 13:13-17

Jesus tells them that He is going away, and He gives them a new commandment. 

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”

John 13:34

Imagine your husband coming in the house after mowing the lawn; he sits down, and you give him a yummy salad—Keith told me to say the salad had kale in it (do men really like salad?).

As he’s munching on the veggies, you untie his shoelaces and slowly pull off his shoes and socks. You’ve already filled a basin with warm water, and you grab your special soap and a warm towel. You gently take one foot and put it in the water and massage his foot with the soap.

Be careful, he might jerk his foot away from you. 

“What are you doing?”

You smile, “I’m showing you I love you.”

You lift his foot, softly dry it with the warm towel and you reach for the other foot.

Will he let you massage his other foot?

What do you think is going through his mind? “Is she crazy?” “What’s she learning at that Bible study?”

What is the definition of love that Jesus commanded?

Bob Lepine, cohost of FamilyLife Today, a nationally syndicated radio program, and author of Love Like You Mean It, writes, 

“But God’s goal for us in marriage goes far beyond comfort and mutual satisfaction. God’s goal for marriage is that we would taste something deeper, something sweeter, and something more glorious in our marriages. He wants us to experience the kind of joy that the Father, Son, and Spirit have always known from long before the world began. He wants us to experience the profound joy that comes from a kind of oneness that is only found in Him. And the only path that leads to that kind of soul-satisfying oneness and joy is the path where the kind of love described here [in 1 Corinthians 13] is being cultivated and is flourishing.”^[i]

Bob Levine

What is love, my friends? Divine love? Agape love? How do you agape your husband?

The word “agape” appears in the New Testament over 200 times. It’s not a feeling but a choice. Of course, feelings are a part of our love for our husbands.

The Greeks had no word for a love that gives sacrificially, a giving love with no expectation of receiving something back. Agape was added to the Greek language to describe the love of God, divine love, a sacrificial love that gives everything for others.

Paul wrote about the gifts of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 12. The Holy Spirit has given members of the church different gifts, just as we have fingers, toes, eyes, ears, arms, legs, and internal organs. Some of the gifts of the Spirit mentioned in chapter 12 are apostles, prophets, teachers, miracles, gifts of healings, helps, administrations, and tongues. 

Each gift is important, but some are more helpful than others. But there is a gift of the Spirit that is more excellent. In fact, it is essential.

But earnestly desire the best gifts. And yet I show you a more excellent way. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love (agape), I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.  (Emphasis added)

1 Corinthians 12:13-13:3

We may be busy doing good works for others, but we may be resenting the time it’s taking or the sacrifices that we’re making. We may not be doing all these good works or exercising our gifts in love. 

Do you remember a day like this? Your day has been filled with shuffling the kids back and forth to school, baseball practice, dance lessons, and now home to make dinner. Or you’ve been at work all day or volunteering at a homeless shelter or cooking for the needy all day, and you’re beat. You’re wondering if you made a difference in someone’s life, or you wasted your day. Your husband calls and says he’s bringing his friend home for dinner, could you make his favorite lasagna?

“Of course, honey.” You hang up the phone and grumble. When your husband and his friend walk through the door, you’re smiling, but deep inside, you’re seething. Is that love? Did all your hard work profit you anything?

Love Lighting the Way … Without love, our work profits us nothing.

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. . . . And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 13:4-13

Turn on your flashlight on your phone. Stretch your left hand in front of you and flex your fingers to the sky, so that you are looking at your wedding ring. Point the light at your wedding ring. Do you see the shine, the light reflected, maybe even a few colors reflected? Admire it for a few seconds.

Turn off your flashlight and close your eyes. Let that sparkling light sink deep into your memory. Take a deep breath and let it penetrate your heart.

When you’re frustrated, rushed, or even happy … at any point of the day, take a deep breath and remember the lovelight in your marriage. You can open your eyes now. 

1 Corinthians 13:4-8 describes the characteristics or attributes of love. 

• 4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 

The verse begins with the positive attributes of love. “Love suffers long and is kind.” Suffering long means to persevere patiently in enduring misfortunes and bearing offenses. God promised Abram a son, and he persevered patiently for decades before Isaac was born to Sarah and him. But he trusted in God and endured.  

Love is kind. Romans 2:4 tells us that God’s kindness leads us to repentance. Longsuffering and kindness. Love.

Have you been in an argument with your husband, and instead of responding with a raised and angry voice, you gently patted him on the shoulder and told him that you felt his frustration?

You hurt inside, but you told him that you are sorry that he feels that way (and you are). You ask him in a soft voice to tell you how you can help make it better. How would he respond?

Proverbs 15:1 tells us “A soft answer turns away wrath, But a harsh word stirs up anger.”

• “Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy;”

Envy, jealousy.

• “love does not parade itself, is not puffed up;”

Although people were flocking to John the Baptist, he was not boastful or proud. He said that Jesus must increase, and he must decrease.

Are you building up your husband? Are you telling others how proud you are of him?

• 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil;

Today, it’s easy to be rude, isn’t it? We become different people when we get on social media. We’re a “look at me” society, and anyone who disagrees with us is wrong—and we let them know it! LOUDLY! Including our husbands. 

We’re talking about God’s love in this chapter. God’s love isn’t rude. Love seeks the good of our husbands. Love is not provoked. It doesn’t think evil of our husbands. Love trusts God’s faithfulness in our marriages. Love wants to see our husbands through God’s eyes.

• 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 

Love doesn’t rejoice in wrongdoing/unrighteousness.” James 3:2 tells us that we “all stumble in many ways.” When our husbands stumble, we can gently pick them up and rejoice in the truth that God forgives. Love rejoices in the truth. Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the life.”

• 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 

Because we rejoice in the truth of the Gospel and in the Truth Who is the way and life, we can bear all things, knowing that all things will be taken care of by God. We believe that Jesus bore all our sins on the cross. Love hopes or waits with confident expectation for the promise set before us. Because of this confident hope, we endure all hardships. 

• 8 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. 

In heaven, we don’t need prophecies, tongues, or the world’s knowledge. Love prevails in the presence of God Almighty. Love is eternal.

Love Lighting the Way: Love is other focused. 

How can we exhibit this kind of love? The only way is to let Jesus Christ live it through us, for He is the embodiment of these characteristics. … This kind of love is nothing less than the fruit of the Spirit. But as I walk with the Lord, talk to the Lord, and learn about the Lord, His Spirit produces this character in me ever so slowly, but ever so surely.^[ii]

Jon Courson

Galatians 5:22-23 says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.”

This fruit is love that is made up of ingredients like what we find in 1 Corinthians 13. Love is a gift of the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit grows that love. 

In John 15:4-5, Jesus told His followers to “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.” 

Our love, our fruit, can only grow and multiply if we abide in Jesus, and He abides in us. Without Jesus, we can’t love one another, we can’t love our husbands as Jesus loves them without the Holy Spirit’s work in and through us. Jesus is the vine, and we are the branches. When we cling to the Vine, we receive His nutrients, and fruit buds. That fruit grows with time and becomes tasty. 

Fruit grows to be given as nourishment for others. It does not exist for itself but to be enjoyed by others. 

Is your fruit, your love, being enjoyed by your husband?

The Holy Spirit grows our fruit as we abide in Jesus. Love contains different characteristics, like the members of the church have different gifts. 

A fruit basket is like agape love. Love contains the gifts of God’s creation to form one beautiful basket of fruit. The excellent basket of the more excellent way.

To the love basket, the Holy Spirit adds: 

• Joy. Like the sweetness of a mango. 
• Peace. The orange rested in the nourishment that the trunk provided as it clung to the branch. 
• Longsuffering. The lemon endured the cold of winter and added a certain welcome tart taste to the fruit.
• Kindness delights the taste as blueberries make us smile. 
• Goodness and generosity. Strawberries spill their seeds upon the ground to multiply sweetness for all to enjoy.
• Faithfulness. The apple tree continues to produce fruit for over 50 years.
• Gentleness. The banana is soft and sweet on the inside.
• Self-control. We indulge in sweet grapes, and we must have self-control. 

Love Lighting the Way … The Holy Spirit nourishes love.

• 13 “And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

How is your fruit, your love basket? Is your love lighting the way?

Prayerfully Consider

• Are you clinging to Jesus for nourishment?
• How is the Holy Spirit growing the fruit of love in your marriage?

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Related Links

Reflecting God’s Love in Marriage … Belief Ablaze

^[i] Bob Lepine, Love Like You Mean It (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing, 2020), 22-23.

^[ii] Jon Courson, Jon Courson’s Application Commentary (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2003), 1076.