“Love means doing what God has commanded us, and he has commanded us to love one another, just as you heard from the beginning.”
2 John 1:6 (NLT)
John doesn’t give us a new definition of love—he reminds us of what we’ve heard from the very beginning. Love isn’t a feeling; it’s doing what God said. It’s obedience in motion. Love is what truth looks like when it’s lived out.
We can’t love apart from truth, and truth isn’t an idea—it’s a Person. The Holy Spirit is truth living in us, the same Spirit Jesus promised in John 14 to teach us and remind us of everything He said. That’s how we know when to love, how to love, and who to love—because the truth living in us compels us to do it beyond our natural capacity.
John repeats this command because love isn’t our default setting—selfishness is. We have to be reminded because without abiding in the Spirit, we drift back to ourselves. But when we walk in obedience, the Spirit within us unites us with the Father and the Son.
To love one another is to walk in the truth. The command to love is the command that unites heaven and earth, Spirit and flesh, God and man. It’s the command that proves who we belong to.