Commanded to love:
How can we be commanded to love? true love has to come voluntarily and if it is commanded, will it still be love? isn't such a command a terrible incursion of the inner being of a person? Infact love is an essential ingredient of human existence. It is love that makes human existence meaningful and fulfilling. The human being therefore has a vocation to love - a moral imperative to love. Why? because we are called to love as our Lord Jesus Christ himself has loved us. The love of our Lord Jesus is a self-sacrificing love, an unconditional love, ..... a love that enriches our being. The only debt we need or should be settling is the debt of love we owe to God and to one another. It's not hard to love those who love us but Jesus revealed to us what is God's love, when died for us when we were still sinners. " For a man can have no greater love than to lay down his life for his friends............"
We are friends of Jesus if we do what he has lovingly commanded us: " Love one another; just as I have love you, you also must love one another. By this love  you have for one another, everyone will know that you are my disciples".  And then we shall bear abundant fruit, fruit that will endure even during the test of time.
Only love has meaning; it raises up our smallest actions into infinity!