How To: Loving the Unlovable // Devotional

Have you ever taken a second to think about how many times God commands us to love one another? Let's take a second...

• Matthew 22:37-40 //  Jesus said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.’ This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ These two commands are pegs; everything in God’s Law and the Prophets hangs from them.”

• John 13:34-35 // “Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other.”
• Romans 12:10 // “Love from the center of who you are; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle.”
• Matthew 5:44-45 // “I’m telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives his best—the sun to warm and the rain to nourish—to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that.”
• John 15:12-13 // “This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you. This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends.”

I could honestly keep going because he talks about this concept for us so much. And it's as if we just read right over it. Or in my case, I see it, I understand it, I think about it, I practice it for a couple of days, and then someone eats my leftovers and loving is thrown out the window. Anyone else?

Who I consider to be "unlovable" may differ from who you think of. When I think of unlovable the first people that come to mind are professors, people who cut you off, the workers at Taco Bell, and people who don't replace the toilet paper. Maybe for you, it's the people who don't believe in personal space, the insulters, or that person that can never tell a good joke. Either way, they are everywhere. I know it sounds harsh, but it's true.

First of all, as humans, we aren't capable of loving every single flawed person on our own. Sometimes we even have trouble loving those who are dearest to us, let alone people we don't even know. The only true source of compassion, strength, and love is God. If we depend on God's love and forgiveness he has for us, it will rub off on us, and then we can proceed to rub it off on other people. Are you following me? I hope so.

God doesn't instruct us to "like" our neighbors, he urges us to "love" them. Guess what? You don't get to pick who your neighbor is, so you're loving everyone. It seems like a simple concept until you're loving someone who you don't think deserves it. Guess what? No one really deserves the love and forgiveness we receive on a daily basis, but God continues to provide.

Sometimes I think that Jesus had pretty high expectations for loving others. Like Jesus, come on, you don't understand, you didn't have the girl in front of you cheat on her boyfriend with your best friend's sister's fiance. Wanna know something cool about Jesus? He experienced the same things we experience. When he gives us commandments, we have to understand that he was once there too. Do you think Jesus should have loved the people that persecuted him, beat him, and ultimately killed him? Well, you did not see him fighting back and calling them ugly names. Jesus lived here on Earth, he probably experienced cheaters a time or two.

Here's a friendly reminder:

1. If we believe that we are worthy of love, then everyone else is worthy of love because we were all made in God's image.

2. Because of sin, we are all unlovable. However, Jesus changed the rules by giving love, grace, and forgiveness.

3. If God can love us, then we can manage to love those around us.

I once heard this reference given when speaking about this topic: At the Last Supper, Jesus was in the same room with a bunch of people about to betray him, deny him, and desert him. He was aware of this. That makes our "unlovable" people seem pretty bearable. But what does Jesus do? "He got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him."

Basically, Jesus is surrounded by a bunch of people who don't really care about him, and he washes their feet. At this moment, Jesus shows us that we are not to fake our love to people, tolerate them, or treat others how they treat us. We are called to serve and to love, genuinely. Now does this mean we have to go around washing the feet of people we don't like? Not exactly, it could just be started with the little things that have a huge impact. For example, praying for the people who can be hard to love sometimes or by sparing someone change when they're short for their meal.

I'm going to wrap this up with a little verse from Galatians: "It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don't use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love."