What Does It Actually Mean to Love Like Jesus?

Love is one of the most talked-about topics in the world, and yet it remains one of the most misunderstood. We throw the word around casually, attach it to preferences and feelings, and quietly reserve it for the people who make it easy. But what if genuine love — the kind that transforms communities, disarms enemies, and reflects the heart of God — looks radically different from what we have settled for?

Romans 12:9-21 lays out one of the most challenging and practical pictures of love found anywhere in Scripture. It is not a soft, sentimental portrait. It is a call to something costly, something counter-cultural, and ultimately something that is only possible through the power of God working in us.

Love Without a Mask

Paul opens with a striking command: let love be sincere. The Greek word he uses literally means without hypocrisy. In the ancient world, the word hypocrite was borrowed from the theater, where actors would hold up masks to portray different characters. Paul is essentially saying, do not wear a mask of love while hiding something entirely different underneath.

This is a word that cuts deep. It is possible to say the right things, smile at the right moments, and still harbor bitterness, jealousy, or contempt beneath the surface. Hypocritical love is transactional — it gives in order to receive. It is conditional — it extends warmth only to those who agree, who behave, who belong to the right group. It is situational — it shows up when convenient and disappears when things get hard.

The contrast Paul draws is the agape love of God. This is not the romantic love of eros, nor the friendship love of philia, nor the family affection of storge. Agape is selfless, sacrificial, and unconditional. It is not primarily driven by emotion or attraction, but by will and commitment — choosing to act for someone else's good regardless of what comes back in return. This is the love God demonstrated when He gave Himself for us. And it is the love He calls us to walk in daily.

Loving Within the Community of Faith

Paul gets remarkably practical. He calls believers to be devoted to one another, to honor one another above themselves, to share with those in need, and to practice hospitality. These are not suggestions for the especially spiritual. They are commands for every follower of Jesus.

It is worth sitting with the word devoted. Devotion implies consistency, sacrifice, and genuine investment. It means showing up not just when it is convenient, but because you have made a commitment to the people around you. In a culture that prizes independence and personal comfort, this kind of devotion is genuinely counter-cultural.

The early church in Acts 4 modeled this beautifully. Believers shared what they had so generously that there were no needy persons among them. They did not cling to their possessions as their own. They saw one another's needs as their responsibility. The result was a community marked by extraordinary grace and power.

Paul also urges believers to never be lacking in zeal, to keep their spiritual fervor alive. This is a warning worth heeding. It is entirely possible to begin with passion and slowly drift into routine, where brothers and sisters in Christ become a nuisance rather than a gift. The antidote Paul prescribes is prayer, hope, and patient endurance — keeping the fire alive by staying connected to the source of the fire.

Loving the People Around You Every Day

The call to love does not stop at the church door. Paul instructs believers to rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. Both matter, and both require something from us.

Mourning with others is often the easier of the two, because grief draws out compassion naturally. But rejoicing with others requires fighting against one of the quieter sins — jealousy. When someone else receives a promotion, a breakthrough, or a blessing we have been waiting for ourselves, our flesh does not naturally celebrate. It competes. It compares. Paul calls us to something better: genuine, wholehearted celebration of another person's joy.

He also calls for humility — a willingness to associate with people of low position, to resist pride and conceit. Jesus himself modeled this perfectly. The Son of God washed feet. He ate with tax collectors and sinners. He touched the untouchable. Humility is not a personality trait reserved for the naturally quiet. It is a posture of the heart that chooses to look outward rather than inward.

Loving Your Enemies

This is where the passage becomes genuinely difficult. Paul writes that believers should bless those who persecute them, not repay evil for evil, and as far as it depends on them, live at peace with everyone. He even says that if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink.

This is not natural. Everything in us wants to strike back, to return the favor, to at least protect ourselves from further harm. But Paul points to something important: vengeance belongs to God. He is a just judge — neither too harsh nor too lenient. When we take vengeance into our own hands, we are stepping into a role that does not belong to us. When we release it to God, we are freed from the weight of carrying it ourselves.

The story of Corrie ten Boom illustrates this with breathtaking clarity. A survivor of the Ravensbrück concentration camp, she came face to face after the war with one of the guards who had been responsible for tremendous cruelty, including the death of her sister. He had become a Christian and asked for her forgiveness. She could not do it. Not in her own strength. But she prayed, and in that moment, God's love moved through her in a way her own will never could have produced. She shook his hand. She forgave him. And she described it as touching the very ocean of God's love.

The Only Way This Is Possible

None of this is achievable through willpower alone. Paul's instruction in the opening verses of Romans 12 is the foundation for everything that follows: in view of God's mercies, offer yourself to Him. The gospel is the only power strong enough to produce this kind of love. We were enemies of God, and He loved us anyway. He died for us while we were still opposed to Him. When that reality takes root in a heart, it begins to change the way that heart sees everyone else.

The invitation today is not to try harder. It is to surrender more fully — to bring the places where love feels impossible to the God who is love itself, and to trust Him to do what only He can do.