Love Without Limits

Coming here means giving credit where credit is due. Several TV commercials lately are making their appeals to “receive what you deserve.” Such wording does have a certain drawing power, but there is a more important idea that calls us not to take credit for what we have done and then appeal for what we deserve from doing it. As Jesus put it, we have only done our duty no matter how well we have done it (Luke 17:10).

Since our duty calls for perfection, there is no way to deserve some reward for doing it, much less for going beyond it. One feature of personal relationships is that it has no possibility for being perfect at it or going beyond it: love has no limits, and love summarizes the way to conduct personal relationships. In that light, Jesus reminds us that nobody demonstrates greater love than laying down his life for his friends (John 15:13). He said that to his disciples the night before he did it himself.

In remembrance of what he said, we credit him here with doing what he put at the top of the list of love. That includes us as friends as we give him credit for laying down his life for our benefit.