Have you ever had someone in your life that you struggle with truly loving? Someone who just rubs you the wrong way? You feel guilty about feeling the way that you do and you ask God to help you love them. After all it seems like such a simple command, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mt. 22:39). Yet it seems at least at times like the hardest thing to do. Have you ever found yourself arguing with God about this command or trying to justify why instead of extending the right hand of fellowship you want to extend the right fist? Sometimes you feel like a little child being scolded by your parents and the only answer you can give is “but…but…but.” The truth of the matter is, Jesus said what He meant and He meant what He said, we are to love our neighbor as our self. And let’s be honest for a moment we laughed when a pro football player said it, but we agree with it when he said “I love me some me” (Terrell Owens-a then Dallas Cowboys player). So many times because we love our self we are quick to forgive the sins we commit, and we expect people to judge us by what we meant to say or do rather than what we actually said or did. There is a line in the movie “Facing the Giants” that seems very applicable here when Coach Grant Taylor said to one of his players, “You can’t judge others by their actions and then expect them to judge you by your intentions.” I realize and agree with you (who are probably arguing with me by now) that there are those people in your life and in my life that make it very hard to fulfill Jesus’ command. But Paul reminds us of something that is very important here. Romans 12:9a, “Let love be without dissimulation.” The word dissimulation means hypocrisy. So Paul said, “Let love with be without hypocrisy.” This means we must not only act like we love others, but we must really love them as Christ as commanded us. However, it also means that we must love all people and not just those that we choose to love. Jesus said what are we proving if we only love those who love us, don’t the unsaved even do that (Mt. 5:46 paraphrased)?
We need to stop rationalizing and stop making excuses for ourselves and begin following Christ’s commands. After all Jesus did say in John 14:15, “If you love me keep my commands.” Some may ask what commands is Jesus referencing here? He boiled the entire Law and all the prophets down to two commands, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind (Mt. 22:37); and Love your neighbor as yourself (Mt. 22:39).” If we are going to love people we need to realize they were made in God’s image just as we were (Gen. 1:26). This means that all people have infinite value to God. We need to realize that Christ died for them just as He died for us. This means that all people have redemptive value to God. And finally we need to realize that just as God has forgiven us for how we have hurt Him and treated Him, we are commanded to forgive those who have hurt or mistreated us (Eph. 4:32). One final question, how would your life change if you started looking at people as Christ looks at them? My guess is how we treated and interacted with one another would change dramatically because we would all be concerned with each others eternal destiny instead of our temporary reality.
By His grace and through His strength may we live for Him.