This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.

John 15:12-13 NKJV

Notice that Jesus wanted the disciples, and by extension us, to love each other the way that “I HAVE loved you“. The key word I want to focus on for just a second is the word “have”. Jesus says the love we are to have for each other is what he was displaying the entire time they were together. Jesus had not went to the cross yet. He wasn’t saying that he wanted each of his disciples to die for the other , but instead to lay down their lives for each other, like Jesus had been doing the whole time. Jesus’s death on the cross was simply a continuation of what His life was before the cross. It was voluntarily laying down His life for His friends.

This is the same thing he speaks of when he says, “If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it” Matt 6:25 NLT. Jesus is giving us the secret to life here: true life comes from laying down your life, losing it for his sake. You may think that Jesus is talking about life after death, but He is really talking about living life here.

Can a person steal what you have given?

That sounds like a silly question, but it is what Jesus wants for us. We are to live life without offense. Believe it or not, you CAN live without being offended. Notice the culture that we are currently in, especially the political culture. You can see, if you step back and look at it, that all offense comes from having rights. A person cannot take your rights if you give them away. A person cannot offend you if you lay down your life for them. A dead man has no rights! “Reckon yourself dead” (Romans 6:11)

Most people will not listen to the message of life that Jesus shares, but it is the only way to truly live. A life of being right and miserable is nothing compared to a life of being love and giving up on being right. I have found that the less I worry about being right and the more I worry about becoming love, the happier I am.

To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either.

Luke 6:29 ESV

The only way you can do what Jesus is asking here without being self righteous is to have laid down your life for the person. Here is the thought process of a man that lays his life down for the world around him:

“That fellow stole my coat, he must be cold. If he is cold he might need a shirt too. My Father in heaven will give me another!” 

The man cannot steal what you give! This is the most wonderful and happy way to live. No one will find life without following Jesus’s teachings and his example.