No  Greater  Love

This is my commandment, that you love one another 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)

Jesus,

Oh how you have loved me! Your love is higher than the highest   heights, deeper than the furthest depths. Your divine love is unfathomable, stretching to the heavens. You have loved me with a holy intensity. No one has loved me more, shown me more kindness, or extended more mercy.

Jesus, you loved me when I was supremely unlovable. You loved me when I was a God-hating rebel. You loved me when I was a cosmic traitor. Your love for me led you to set aside your glory and be born in the form of a humble baby. Your love led you to live a sinless, righteous, perfect life in my life. And your love led you to lay down your life in my place.

Jesus, help me to love others as you have loved me. Your love for me was a deep, self-‐giving, self-‐sacriicial, others-‐centered love. You laid aside your rights as a Son and co-Creator, laid aside your glory, laid aside all that rightfully belonged to you. You laid down your very life for me! You did not clutch to your rights or your glory, but instead sacrificially laid them aside. Help me to love others in the same way. Give me a heart that is quick to lay down its privileges and rights, quick to sacrifice for others, quick to look to the interests of others. So often I hold fast to my perceived “rights”. Forgive me for being so   selfish. Give me a heart that is quick to sacrifice for others.

*Jesus, I now confess that I am often selfish and self-‐serving, caring more about my own interests than the interests of others. Please fill my heart with your deep, zealous love for others. I need you to fill me with divine, supernatural, sacrificial love. Give me your affection for my fellow saints. Help me to see others through the eyes of Christ, love others with the love of Christ, sacrifice for others just as Christ sacrificed for me.*

Jesus, I truly understand love when I see how you have loved me. Help me to love others just as you have loved me.