God’s Call: Love Those Who Are Hard to Love

It’s easy to show love to those who mean the most to you; but how are you at loving those you aren’t so fond of?

In Matthew 22:34-40, one of the Sadducees asked Jesus which is the greatest commandment in the Law. Jesus answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.”

But instead of stopping there, the Lord added, “The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”

The Lord put so much emphasis on these two commandments because He wants you to know how important they are to Him in order to obey Him.

Loving the Unlovely

To love someone as we love ourselves is a pretty tall order. This doesn’t just mean loving our Christian brothers and sisters or our biological brothers and sisters—it means everyone, even bad people, mean people, and those who, in our humanness, we can hardly stand.

In and of ourselves, we simply can’t do this. We must allow the Lord to love them through us.

Yes, you can determine in your heart that you will choose to love everyone. But in order for this to become a reality, you have to take daily steps to love even the unlovely—day by day, one step at a time.

As we go through our lives, we have opportunities to interact with many different people. And as we connect with others, we have the choice to love them or not. This isn’t always easy, because we’re bound to find some people easier to love than others.

The Desire of Jesus

Jesus wants us to have a great love for the Lost. But in order for this to happen, we must allow His love to penetrate our hearts and flow through us.

Some Lost people are easy to love: the sweet children with swollen bellies that we see on TV broadcasts from third-world nations, those who are homeless as a result of tragic events or unwise choices, or our old friends who finally choose Christ after we’ve prayed for them for years.

But what about the ones who aren’t so easy to love? We are called to love them anyway. We don’t have a choice if—and that’s a big if—we truly want to obey Christ. He told us clearly, “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you” (John 15:12).

Compassion to Pray

You’ll find that the more you pray for someone, the more you will experience God’s love and compassion for them in your heart. This is God’s unconditional love, committed to the other person’s highest good—not dependent on their worthiness or your own emotions.

If you aren’t already praying for the Lost, would you begin today? Ask the Lord for opportunities to share His love and plan of salvation with those within your sphere of influence. Answer His call to love those who are hard to love.

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