Loving Others as Christ Commands

"Jesus saith unto him,

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 

This is the first and great commandment.  And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

Matthew 22:37-39

My husband has been preaching on the words of Christ the past few weeks.  This morning he focused on these verses, mainly the second - Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.  This afternoon I came across this blog post - How Can We Possibly Love as God Commands.

Is it possible to love as God commands?

"Jesus beheld them, and said unto them,

With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." 

Matthew 19:26

So, Christ tells us to love God with all our heart, and to love our neighbour as we love ourselves.   This seems like a difficult task.  But a few chapters later He tells us with God all things are possible.

Can we love someone who has hurt us?

Can we love someone who has talked badly about us?

Can we love someone who has physically hurt us?

Can we love someone who has no desire to love back?

Can we love someone who is unlovable?

We're not told to tolerate them, we're told to love them.  From the human perspective, we put our guard up and say, "no way!"   When we are hurt by someone, it's easy to put up the walls of protection to be sure we're not hurt again.  But this isn't what Christ wants us to do.   He wants us to turn the other cheek, to go the extra mile.

 "But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.  And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.  And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.  Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.  Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.  But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;"  Matthew 5:39-44

We read these red letter words, we know they belong to Christ, but do we obey?  James 1:22 tells us
"But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only..."  The Lord has been working in my heart regarding this topic.  I pray that He will help me to love those that hurt me, those that are unlovable, those that talk badly about me, and those that have no desire to love back. I am going to chose to love, not just tolerate, but to love as Christ loves, because with God all things are possible.

How about you?  Do you find some people unlovable?  Will you join me in choosing to love them?

After all, God loves us, even when we're unlovable.