I used to think loving like Jesus meant being nicer. Smiling more. Being patient in traffic. Saying kind things. And those aren't wrong — but they're not what Jesus meant, and I think we've domesticated His love to the point where it barely resembles the original.
The love of Jesus got Him killed. It drove Him into conversations with people that respectable religious leaders avoided. It made Him say hard things to people He cared about. It led Him to a cross He didn't have to go to. That's not a love that fits neatly on a bumper sticker. It's a love that costs something. And I think most of us, if we're honest, have been practicing a much cheaper version.
So let me try to describe what the real thing actually looks like.
The Greek Word That Defines It
When Jesus talks about love in John 13:34 — "Love one another as I have loved you" — the word He uses is agape. Not eros (romantic love) or philia (friendship love). Agape.
Agape is the word the New Testament uses for God's love for humanity. It's not based on the worthiness of the object. It's not conditional on the response. It's not a feeling that rises and falls with circumstances. It's a decision — a settled, deliberate, costly commitment to the good of another person regardless of what they do with it.
That's the love Jesus modeled. He loved Judas at the Last Supper knowing Judas was about to betray Him. He loved Peter knowing Peter was about to deny Him three times. He loved the people who were about to crucify Him enough to pray for their forgiveness while they were doing it. That's not a warm feeling. That's a decision made in the face of the worst possible response.
And He tells us to love each other the same way.
What Jesus' Love Actually Looked Like
I've spent a lot of time in the Gospels paying attention to how Jesus actually loved people, and a few things stand out that don't always make it into the "love like Jesus" conversation.
He was present. Jesus didn't love people from a distance. He went to where they were — to the tax collector's house, to the Samaritan woman's well, to the tomb of His friend. He touched lepers when nobody else would. He stopped when He was on His way somewhere else because someone needed Him. Presence is one of the most underrated forms of love, and Jesus was relentlessly present.
He told the truth. Jesus loved people enough to say hard things. He told the rich young ruler that his money was his god. He told the woman caught in adultery to go and sin no more. He called the Pharisees whitewashed tombs. None of those were comfortable conversations. But they were loving ones — because love that only tells you what you want to hear isn't love. It's flattery. And flattery doesn't help anyone.
He saw people. The woman at the well had been married five times and was living with a man who wasn't her husband. Jesus knew all of it and talked to her anyway — not to shame her, but to offer her something real. Zacchaeus was a corrupt tax collector that everyone despised. Jesus looked up into the tree and said "I'm coming to your house today." Jesus had a way of seeing the person that everyone else had written off, and that seeing was itself an act of love.
He served. The night before He died, Jesus got down on His knees and washed His disciples' feet. The Creator of the universe, on His knees, washing the feet of the men who were about to abandon Him. That's the posture of His love. Not above. Down low. Serving.
Where I've Gotten It Wrong
I want to be honest here because I think honesty is more useful than inspiration.
I've loved people conditionally more times than I can count. I've been kind to the people who were kind back and distant from the ones who weren't. I've told people what they wanted to hear because the truth felt too risky. I've been present for the people who were easy to be present for and absent for the ones who were complicated or draining or just hard.
That's not loving like Jesus. That's loving like a human being who is trying to protect herself. And I understand it — I'm not beating myself up about it — but I'm also not pretending it's the standard Jesus set.
The standard He set is agape. Decided. Costly. Not contingent on the response. And the only way I've found to get anywhere close to it is to stay close to the source of it. You can't manufacture agape on your own. It's not a personality trait. It's a fruit of the Spirit — which means it grows in you as you stay connected to the One who is the source of it.
The Love Like Jesus verse study goes deep on John 13:34 and what Jesus meant when He gave this as a new commandment — why it was new, what made it different from the Old Testament command to love your neighbor, and what the "as I have loved you" standard actually requires.
The People Who Are Hard to Love
I want to spend a minute here because I think it's where the rubber meets the road.
Loving like Jesus is relatively easy with the people who are easy to love. The friend who shows up for you. The family member who gets you. The stranger who's kind. That's not where the standard gets tested.
It gets tested with the person who hurt you and hasn't apologized. The family member who makes every gathering harder. The coworker who takes credit for your work. The person whose politics or theology or lifestyle you find genuinely difficult. The one who keeps needing things and never seems to get better.
Jesus loved those people too. He loved them specifically. He didn't love them from a safe distance with a vague goodwill. He went to them. He sat with them. He told them the truth and served them and saw them.
I'm not saying that's easy. I'm saying that's the standard. And I'm saying that the gap between where most of us are and where Jesus was is not a reason for shame — it's a reason to stay close to Him. Because the closer you are to the source of agape, the more of it flows through you. That's not a formula. That's just how it works.
What It Looks Like in the Ordinary
Loving like Jesus doesn't always look dramatic. Most of the time it looks like ordinary faithfulness in ordinary moments.
It looks like staying in the hard conversation instead of shutting down. It looks like showing up for someone who can't repay you. It looks like telling a friend the truth they need to hear instead of the comfort they're asking for. It looks like forgiving someone who hasn't asked for it — not because they deserve it, but because you've been forgiven more than you can calculate and you know what that cost.
It looks like noticing the person nobody else is noticing. The one who's quiet at the gathering. The one who's been struggling for a long time and is tired of talking about it. The one who's been written off. Jesus had a particular attention for those people, and loving like Him means developing that same attention.
And sometimes it looks like wearing something that reminds you, before the day gets hard and the people get difficult, of what you've decided to be about. Not as a performance — as a prompt. A daily declaration of the standard you're trying to live up to, even when you fall short of it.
The Connection to Christ Is King
I want to draw one thread here that I think matters. Loving like Jesus is only possible if Jesus is actually Lord of your life — not just a moral example you're trying to imitate, but the King whose Spirit lives in you and produces in you what you can't produce on your own.
The Christ Is King article makes this point clearly: lordship changes everything. When Christ is King, His priorities become your priorities. His love becomes the standard you're actually trying to live by, not just the standard you admire from a distance. And His Spirit is the power that makes it possible to love the people who are genuinely hard to love.
You can't love like Jesus by trying harder. You love like Jesus by staying closer. That's the whole secret, if there is one.
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Related Reading
- What Does 'Love Like Jesus' Mean? The Standard That Changes Everything — the verse-by-verse breakdown of John 13:34
- What Does Christ Is King Mean? — lordship is what makes loving like Jesus possible
- What Does 'For God So Loved the World' Mean? John 3:16 Explained — the love that modeled everything
- How to Actually Live Faith Over Fear — love and fear cannot coexist as your primary operating system
- Best Christian T-Shirts for Women — wearing your faith as a daily declaration
Frequently Asked Questions
What does "love like Jesus" mean biblically?
It comes from John 13:34 — "Love one another as I have loved you." The Greek word is agape: a decided, costly, unconditional commitment to the good of another person regardless of their response. Jesus modeled it by loving Judas at the Last Supper, praying for His executioners, and going to the cross for people who didn't deserve it. It's not a feeling. It's a decision.
Is loving like Jesus the same as being a pushover?
No. Jesus told hard truths, confronted hypocrisy, and said things that made people uncomfortable. He flipped tables in the temple. He called out the Pharisees publicly. Loving like Jesus includes honesty, boundaries, and the courage to say what someone needs to hear rather than what they want to hear. Pushover love isn't love — it's conflict avoidance dressed up as kindness.
How do I love people who are genuinely hard to love?
Stay close to the source. Agape is a fruit of the Spirit — it grows in you as you stay connected to God through prayer, Scripture, and community. You can't manufacture it on your own. The closer you are to Jesus, the more His love flows through you toward the people who are hardest to love. It's not a formula. It's a relationship.
Does loving like Jesus mean forgiving everyone?
Yes — but forgiveness doesn't mean pretending harm didn't happen or removing all consequences. Jesus forgave from the cross while the harm was still being done. Forgiveness is releasing the debt, not excusing the behavior. You can forgive someone and still have appropriate boundaries. The two aren't in conflict.
What's the difference between loving like Jesus and just being a nice person?
Nice is easy. Agape is costly. A nice person is kind to people who are kind back. Jesus loved people who were about to betray, deny, and crucify Him. The difference shows up most clearly in how you treat the people who have hurt you, the people who can't repay you, and the people nobody else is paying attention to. That's where loving like Jesus gets real.
About the Author
Naomi Ruth Hendricks is a writer, speaker, and women's ministry leader based in North Carolina. She has spent over a decade teaching women how to read the Bible for themselves and apply it to the actual texture of their lives. She writes about love, forgiveness, and the slow, hard, beautiful work of becoming more like Jesus. She is a wife, a mother of two teenagers, and a firm believer that the most important conversations happen around dinner tables. She makes excellent cornbread and mediocre pie.