A Family of Families Whose Family Resemblance Is Love

Why is it so hard to actually love the people closest to me?

Wanting to be loving is easy in the abstract and hard at the table. Graham and Britney spent twelve years caring for a mother who could no longer give anything back, and Jesus points at that kind of love as the ordinary shape of his family.

“This is my commandment, that you love one another, even as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

John 15:12–13

For one will hardly die for a righteous man. Yet perhaps for a good person someone would even dare to die. But God commends his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 5:7–8

By this we know love, because he laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But whoever has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, then closes his heart of compassion against him, how does God’s love remain in him? My little children, let’s not love in word only, or with the tongue only, but in deed and truth.

1 John 3:16–18

How do I stay in the love of Jesus instead of just knowing about it?

Jesus does not hand his disciples a command and walk away; he tells them to make their home in his love the way a tree stays in the ground. Obedience and abiding are not two separate projects for him, they are the same life.

Even as the Father has loved me, I also have loved you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, even as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have spoken these things to you, that my joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be made full.

John 15:9–11

Remain in me, and I in you. As the branch can’t bear fruit by itself unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you, unless you remain in me. I am the vine. You are the branches. He who remains in me and I in him bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

John 15:4–5

…but his delight is in Yahweh’s law. On his law he meditates day and night. He will be like a tree planted by the streams of water, that produces its fruit in its season, whose leaf also does not wither. Whatever he does shall prosper.

Psalms 1:2–3

“When the Counselor has come, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me.

John 15:26

What am I asking other people to give me that only Jesus can give?

Underneath a lot of relational frustration is a quiet question about what we need from someone to feel okay. When a spouse or a child or a friend is made to answer that question, love turns into a transaction and the person buckles under it.

No longer do I call you servants, for the servant doesn’t know what his lord does. But I have called you friends, for everything that I heard from my Father, I have made known to you. You didn’t choose me, but I chose you and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain; that whatever you will ask of the Father in my name, he may give it to you. “I command these things to you, that you may love one another.

John 15:15–17

Yahweh says: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man, relies on strength of flesh, and whose heart departs from Yahweh. For he will be like a bush in the desert, and will not see when good comes, but will inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, an uninhabited salt land. “Blessed is the man who trusts in Yahweh, and whose confidence is in Yahweh. For he will be as a tree planted by the waters, who spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes, but its leaf will be green, and will not be concerned in the year of drought. It won’t cease from yielding fruit.

Jeremiah 17:5–8

My soul rests in God alone. My salvation is from him. He alone is my rock, my salvation, and my fortress. I will never be greatly shaken.

Psalms 62:1–2

What does it mean that the Holy Spirit makes Jesus known to me?

Jesus does not leave his people to manufacture this love by willpower. He sends the Spirit, whose whole work is to keep taking what belongs to Jesus and making it real to us, so that love grows from something received rather than something summoned.

“When the Counselor has come, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me.

John 15:26

I will pray to the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, that he may be with you forever: the Spirit of truth, whom the world can’t receive, for it doesn’t see him and doesn’t know him. You know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.

John 14:16–17

…and hope doesn’t disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

Romans 5:5

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

Galatians 5:22–23

Who have I stopped noticing?

The failure Jesus warns against is not always hostility; sometimes it is simply not seeing the person in front of us. Jeffrey Studdard Kennedy's poem imagines Christ returning and being overlooked rather than rejected, which is uncomfortably close to how we treat the neighbor at our own table.

“Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you a drink? When did we see you as a stranger and take you in, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and come to you?’ “The King will answer them, ‘Most certainly I tell you, because you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

Matthew 25:37–40

Jesus answered, “A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who both stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead. By chance a certain priest was going down that way. When he saw him, he passed by on the other side. In the same way a Levite also, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he traveled, came where he was. When he saw him, he was moved with compassion, came to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. He set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, gave them to the host, and said to him, ‘Take care of him. Whatever you spend beyond that, I will repay you when I return.’ Now which of these three do you think seemed to be a neighbor to him who fell among the robbers?” He said, “He who showed mercy on him.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

Luke 10:30–37

Don’t withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in the power of your hand to do it. Don’t say to your neighbor, “Go, and come again; tomorrow I will give it to you,” when you have it by you.

Proverbs 3:27–28