True love always involves sacrifice, because pleasing the other person (and that is the essence of love), will not always be convenient to us. The greatest love is totally sacrificial and that is how Jesus has shown His love to us. He expects us to love Him and others in the same way.
True friendship is also self-revealing: we cannot expect others to know about us, unless we reveal ourselves to them. That is the friendship Jesus offers – not only telling us what pleases and displeases Him, but also sharing with us the person He is and the purpose for which He came into the world.
Naturally we are afraid of unlimited self-sacrifice and self-disclosure. Both take us out of our comfort zones and therefore away from being in control. Jesus came to please the Father; and His disciples must respond to Him and each other in the same way. We can never say that we do not know what pleases the Lord, because He has told us. We validate His friendship as we obey Him, which includes being open with others and serving them in Christ’s Name. So let us love each other
(1 John 4:7-12). But we need to be careful we do not fool ourselves: 1 John 3:18 says, “Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.”
