We know as Christians that love is behind everything we do in ministry. Our acts of service, faithfulness, and trusting obedience flow from the love we have experienced because of the cross. But what does it mean to love like Jesus?

Christian love means laying down your life.

Christ laid down His life for us in every sense. Loving like Him means following His example and laying down our lives too.

• “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” —Romans 5:8
• “And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” —Ephesians 5:2
• “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.” —1 John 3:16
• “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” —John 15:13

Christian love means living like Christ.

God is love, so to love like Jesus—simply and profoundly—means to live like He did.

• “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” —Galatians 2:20
• “For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.” —2 Corinthians 5:14–15

Christian love means Christ lives in us.

The love we show in our lives is the love of Christ in us. We love because He enables us.

• “So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” —Ephesians 3:17
• “So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and anyone who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” —1 John 4:16

Christian love means we live in confidence.

Because God has given us everything in Christ, we live boldly and confidently, knowing His love is our strength.

• “In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” —Romans 8:37–39
• “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” —Romans 8:32

Christian love is continual.

Loving like Jesus extends to the smallest aspect of our lives. Following Christ’s model means exercising love in every attitude behind our actions, whatever that might look like.

• “Let all that you do be done in love.” —1 Corinthians 16:14

To learn how you can be praying with us for the ministry in Haiti, visit Prayer Requests.