Greetings in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit!
“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:13)
If you’ve ever sat through the end of a romantic movie, you’ve probably noticed something curious. The story almost always ends at the moment of confession, reunion, or sacrifice. A kiss in the rain. A desperate airport chase. Two people saying “I love you,” then the credits roll.
Why? Because we’re drawn to the *idea* of love. We crave its warmth, its meaning, its spark. Somewhere deep inside, we hope for a connection that sees us, accepts us, and completes us. But we rarely explore what comes after.
Many films feed us a fantasy—a love that fixes everything in 90 minutes. It’s dramatic, emotional, and sometimes even beautiful. But it often misses the mark. These stories tell us that love is about feeling good, being chosen, or finding “the one.” They make love seem like a peak moment rather than a lifelong journey.
Psychologist Carl Jung offered a more profound view. He suggested love is not just about attraction or chemistry, but about wholeness. Real love, he said, means embracing another fully—both their light and their shadow. It’s not about fixing or completing the other, but about growing together. Becoming more by giving, not by demanding.
Jung’s love is rare. Noble. And in a world full of self-focused relationships, it feels revolutionary.
But what if even that kind of love isn’t the summit?
What if there is a love that doesn’t just embrace one person’s brokenness but *everyone’s*? A love that doesn’t stop at mutual growth? A love that is so vast, so undeserved, so healing—it changes not only a person but the world?
Does such love exist?
Keep reading. Let’s journey together for a while to discover and understand more about love.
The Limits of Human Love
Let’s begin with something we all experience— our own human efforts to love.
From the time we’re young, we start to understand love as something that must be earned. We seek approval from our parents, applause from our teachers, and acceptance from our peers. Love begins to feel like a transaction, something given in return for behavior, performance, or success.
We hear it in the subtle messages around us:
“I’ll love you if you make me proud.”
“I’ll stay with you if you keep me happy.”
“I’ll forgive you—once you’ve proven you’ve changed.”
Even the most heartfelt human love often carries conditions. We say “I love you,” but sometimes what we mean is, “I love what you do for me,” or “I love how you make me feel.” It’s a love with limits, and when those limits are crossed, love can falter.
Carl Jung, the Swiss psychologist, offered a more thoughtful and mature definition of love. He described it as the integration of the whole person—the light and the shadow. True love, in his view, was not about control or perfection, but about fully embracing someone, flaws and all. It was about two people growing together, without demanding the other to disappear or submit.
This kind of love is rare. It doesn’t seek to possess. It honors individuality. It offers understanding. And in many ways, it’s healing—especially in a culture that often reduces love to attraction or convenience.
But even Jung’s noble love runs into a wall: the self.
It assumes both people are mature enough to love back. It works only when both are willing. But what happens when love is not returned? When it’s rejected, twisted, betrayed?
What happens when one person chooses harm over healing?
This is where even the highest form of human love can fall short. Because most of us, when hurt deeply enough, will reach a point where we say:
“I can’t do this anymore.”
And that’s understandable. Human love can only stretch so far. It bends until it breaks.
Jesus told us this would happen.
“If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?” (Matthew 5:46)
In other words, even the world knows how to love those who love them back. That’s not radical. That’s not transforming. That’s just human.
But Jesus was pointing to something deeper. A kind of love that doesn’t depend on the other person’s behavior or response. A love that keeps going when human strength runs out.
When faced with betrayal, Jesus didn’t turn away. When surrounded by enemies, He didn’t build walls. When rejected, He didn’t retaliate.
He chose love.
“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)
That’s the difference.
Human love has limits. Even at its noblest, it eventually says, “Enough.”
But Jesus never did.
He kept loving.
He kept forgiving.
He kept reaching.
And that’s where we begin to see the love that isn’t bound by self.
The love that embraces all.
The love that will never let go.
The Love That Loves First—and Always
Most people think love is earned.
We expect that to be loved, we must be good enough, kind enough, or at least lovable. The world teaches us that love is something we receive when we behave right or when someone finds us worthy. It’s how nearly all relationships operate—love follows merit, not need.
But Jesus came to show us something different.
“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:13)
It was a beautiful and noble idea—radical, even. Yet it was more than just a statement. It was a preview of what He was about to do.
He would lay down His life… not just for His friends, but also for His enemies.
And He would do it willingly.
At the moment when Jesus was being crucified—when He was surrounded by people who had betrayed, denied, mocked, and condemned Him—He didn’t defend Himself. He didn’t call down judgment. He didn’t retreat into silence.
Instead, He said something that still shakes the world:
“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34)
That is not human love. That is divine love.
That is limitless love.
Jesus loved Judas, who betrayed Him with a kiss.
He loved Peter, who denied Him three times.
He loved Thomas, who doubted His resurrection.
He even loved the Pharisees, who conspired against Him, and the Roman soldiers who nailed Him to the cross.
He loved the leper, the woman caught in adultery, the thief on the cross. He loved the people the world ignored, shamed, or condemned.
Jesus didn’t come for admiration. He came for rescue.
He didn’t wait for us to get it together. He came while we were broken. Then those who met Jesus were even against Him.
“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)
This is not love that waits for you to be good. This is love that meets you where you are—and then carries you toward healing.
Jesus didn’t love us because we were already lovable. He loved us into becoming who we were made to be.
That’s the love that loves first.
“We love because He first loved us.” (1 John 4:19)
His love isn’t reactive. It’s initiating.
He doesn’t say, “Come to Me when you’re clean.”
He says, “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)
He doesn’t say, “Fix yourself before I’ll help you.”
He says, “Whoever comes to Me I will never drive away.” (John 6:37)
This love breaks every barrier—sin, shame, rejection, fear.
And it keeps going.
His love doesn’t run out. It doesn’t grow tired. It doesn’t disappear when we fail.
Jesus is not waiting to be impressed by your performance.
He’s waiting to be received.
Limitless love doesn’t ask for worthiness—it offers mercy.
It doesn’t keep score—it extends grace.
It doesn’t withdraw when rejected—it leans in again.
This is the love that loves first.
This is the love that loves always.
And this is the love that changes everything.
Love That Transforms Us and Others
So what do we do with this kind of love—the love that loves first, the love that never runs out?
Jesus was clear, yet His words reach far beyond duty or religion:
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. … And love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37–39)
At first glance, this might sound like a spiritual to-do list: love God, love others. Simple. Clean. Manageable.
But this is not a checklist. This is an invitation into a new kind of life.
Because true love—limitless love—is not something we manufacture. It’s something we receive, and then allow to reshape us.
When you’ve been loved like Jesus loves you—unconditionally, sacrificially, completely—it redefines your reality.
Suddenly, your value is no longer tied to your performance or past.
You’re no longer desperate to earn love because you’re already held by it.
You no longer need to pretend, because you’ve been fully known and still fully embraced.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17)
When Jesus’ love takes root, it begins to flow outward—not by pressure, but by presence.
You find yourself forgiving—not because it’s easy, but because you remember the mercy that found you.
You find yourself loving the difficult—not because they deserve it, but because Jesus loved you at your most difficult.
You begin to even love yourself—not with pride, but with grace You stop calling yourself worthless because the One who knows everything about you called you worth dying for.
Jesus doesn’t ask you to love others out of your own strength.
He asks you to love them as He loved you. (John 13:34)
This includes loving when it costs:
- Loving your spouse when the spark feels dim.
- Loving your children when they break your heart.
- Loving your friends when they fail you.
- Loving your enemy when they don’t apologize.
- Loving yourself when you’re tangled in shame.
This is not weak love.
This is not soft love.
This is transforming love.
Because it does what nothing else can: it rebuilds what’s broken.
It rebuilds marriages by planting grace where bitterness took root.
It heals shame by declaring, “You are forgiven.”
It reaches across boundaries of race, class, politics, and pain, and says, “You belong.”
It creates communities where people are seen, valued, and restored—not for what they bring to the table, but for who they are.
“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.” (1 Peter 4:8)
The world is desperate for this kind of love—not another opinion, not another argument, but the kind of love that shows up, stays, and serves.
When Jesus said, Follow me, He was inviting us into that kind of life.
Not to perform it.
But to be transformed by it—so we can live it, give it, and let it shine through us.
Because when we love like Him, we don’t just reflect Jesus.
We reveal Him.
And through that, lives are changed—including our own.
Summary: Love Begins with Being Loved
Love is one of the most longed-for, talked-about, and misunderstood words in our world.
From movies to music, from psychology to philosophy, we chase a love that will finally make us feel complete. Some love is conditional. Some love is noble. But every kind of human love, no matter how deep or sincere, eventually hits its limit.
That’s why the love of Jesus is unlike any other.
He didn’t love us because we were lovable. He loved us when we were lost.
He didn’t wait for us to clean up. He stepped into our mess.
He didn’t just die for friends. He forgave enemies from the cross.
“We love because He first loved us.” (1 John 4:19)
This is not a love you earn.
It’s a love you receive.
And once received, it begins to reshape everything.
You begin to see yourself differently—not as a failure, but as forgiven.
You begin to see others differently—not as threats, but as people loved by God.
You begin to live differently—not out of pressure, but from peace.
“Love the Lord your God… and love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37–39)
This is not a rule. It’s a response.
The more we are rooted in the limitless love of Jesus, the more that love will overflow—into marriages, families, communities, even into people who seem unlovable.
And in that, the world will begin to see Him—not just in our words, but in our lives.
Because love doesn’t just start with us.
It starts with Him.
Let’s pray together.
Dear Jesus,
We thank You for a love that goes beyond our understanding. A love that sees the worst in us and still gives the best. A love that doesn’t ask us to be perfect, but invites us to come as we are.
Teach us, Lord, to receive Your love—not as an idea, but as a reality that transforms everything. Heal the places in us that still believe we’re unworthy. Show us how to love others—not in our own strength, but with Your compassion.
Help us to love when it’s hard.
Help us to forgive when it hurts.
Help us to see ourselves and others the way You see us.
May we become people who love as You love—limitless, bold, and free.
In Your name we pray,
Amen.
“We love because He first loved us.” (1 John 4:19)