Highest Act of Love

1 John 4:10-11
In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

We learn from these verses that the highest form of love is to be a propitiation. A propitiation is a "wrath bearer." Jesus is God's wrath bearer. A wrath bearer, absorbs and fully takes the wrath of someone, so that what remains is grace and blessing. 

Jesus took the wrath of God in our place. God was not angry with Jesus, for he fully did the will of his Father. But God was angry with us because we have not done God's will. God's wrath was poured out on Jesus as he hung upon a cross on the hill of Golgotha. Jesus then assented to heaven and sent the Holy Spirit to dwell inside those who believe. This Holy Spirit begins to change the believer into the same moral image of Jesus. This is the other part of propitiation. The forgiveness of God because of Jesus, and the grace of the Holy Spirit is the grace that we receive because Jesus was our propitiation. When you watch this video...All I Have is Christ - An Animation...think "propitiation," when you see fire poured out on Jesus from one side of the cross, then blessing flow out the other side. 

When we love people like this, that is the greatest expression of love. When you absorb wrathful words and wrathful actions of others, so that another can receive kindness; this is being a functional earthly propitiation.