By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. — John 13:35
There are a lot of people who brag about their love. On social media. In conversation. In the carefully curated moments they choose to share publicly. There is nothing wrong with loving your spouse or your family deeply and genuinely. But when the declaration of love seems to require a daily audience, when it is performed more than it is practiced. something about it starts to feel a little suspicious. Because the real truth of love is almost never found in the public moments. It is found in the private ones. The ones nobody photographs. The ones that cost something and produce no recognition.
Jesus makes a striking declaration on the night of His arrest. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples. Not by your theology. Not by your church attendance or your knowledge of Scripture or the Christian content you share. By this. By one specific, visible, unmistakable thing. The way you love.
He had just washed His disciples’ feet. The night before the cross, with everything pressing in from every direction, He had taken a towel and a basin and done the work of a servant. And then He told them to love one another the same way He had loved them.
That kind of love does not require an audience. It does not post about itself. Mary understood this.
When Mary broke the alabaster box and poured expensive ointment over Jesus, she was not performing for the room. She was not interested in what the disciples thought or what anyone else said about her. The disciples called it wasteful. Jesus called it beautiful. The difference between their response and hers was not information or intelligence or even devotion in some abstract sense. It was love that had been shaped by proximity to Him. Love that had grown past the point of calculating the cost.
She set aside the distractions. She was not worried about what needed to be done in the other room. She was not focused on managing the opinions of the people around her. She was just about Jesus. And in that singular, unself-conscious act of love, she produced the most compelling evidence in the room of what time with Him had done to her.
The disciples were concerned about the waste. Mary was not thinking about the waste at all. That is what genuine love does. It stops calculating.
The love that evidences a life with Jesus is not the love that comes easily when people are easy to love. It is not the affection we feel in the good seasons or the warmth we express when it costs nothing. It is the love that serves without being asked and gives without calculating the return. The love that stays when staying is difficult and forgives when forgiving costs something significant.
That kind of love does not come naturally from the human heart. It is not produced by trying harder or feeling more. It is produced by proximity. By time spent with the One who modeled it most completely on the night He took a towel and on the day He took a cross.
The evidence of how you love is not found in what you post about it. It is found in the private moments. The inconvenient ones. The ones that cost something and ask nothing in return. That is the love Jesus said would make you recognizable. That is the love that cannot be faked for long.
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