Here are a few scriptures and some thoughts about “greater love hath no man” from a July 23, 2007 journal entry.
- Luke 23: 33-46 – the account of the crucifiction. Christ giving His spirit to the Father. It shows love when you give of yourselft to someone else. You give children your time, your family time and attention. You give up your wants and needs for others. The greatest love is when you give up the greatest thing; your life, your will, your spirit.
- Your life: great love, to cease living for someone else.
- Your will: greater love, to live as someone else wants you to.
- Your spirit: greatest love, the direction of your eternal being, eternal life, is handed over to someone else.
- John 15: 13 Greatest love is laying down life for a friend. We are Christ’s friend when we do his will, do what he commands. He shows we are friends, and not servants because he tells us what he knows, from his Father, and keeps not what he knows from us. Laying down life doesn’t just mean dying for God, but more difficult is to live for God.
- 1 Nephi 19: 9-10 It is great love when you allow ignorant people to cause you to suffer? Perhaps only when the outcome of that suffering is of greater importance than not suffering. Or the love is seen when you suffer at someone’s hands, but do not retaliate, seek revenge, or become vengeful.
- D&C 34: 1-4 As we believe Jesus Christ, and to believe is to act and to become, we become His sons and daughters. This is possible because of His love for us in giving His own life for the cause, for the Plan. We hear, “you only have one life, one chance to be on this earth. You better use it well.” Some take that to mean party all you can. Others think, I best not mess it up, and so I should live righteously as a result. In each case the person makes choices, and regardless of desired outcome, many, if not most, of those choices are of a selfish and personal nature. They are to fulfill personal desires. Christ, on the other hand, was the ONLY person to live on this earth, and possibly and most probably on any other earth, to not live or make choices for himself. Instead everything he did was God’s will. As in John 5: 30, He does nothing of his own self, not his will, but the will of the Father. This is even repeated three times: John 4: 34; 5: 30; 6: 38.