Jesus said that the greatest commandment is to love God, but the second greatest commandment is to love people. I will admit that sometimes loving people seems like a much bigger challenge than loving God. However, throughout the Bible we are commanded to love people. So to help you, I want to share six principles that will help you do this.
The reason God can command every believer to love is because He first loved us. This truth alone removes any excuse you could give for not loving other people. Any reason you want to give as proof why you shouldn’t love someone is overturned by the truth that God loved you first.
God didn’t love you when you were good or had it all together. He loved you when you were dealing with your sin, at your worst, when you weren’t even thinking about him. If he can love you when you were at your lowest, then surely you can show the same love to other people.
2. Love is not an emotional response, it is a decision of the will
While there are emotional aspects to love, the root of love has nothing to do with feelings. The truth is, we don’t touch to love, we I will To love. If love was based on our feelings or emotions, then love would be fickle, fickle and unpredictable. Your love would change from day to day and moment to moment just like your feelings.
Since love is based on your will, this means that whether you love someone is a matter of choice. Choosing love is intentional. This also means that choosing not to love is also intentional. We all have people in our lives that we love more easily than others, but the commandment does not change. When you think of the hardest person in your life to love, remember that God loved you first. Remembering this truth will help you choose to love that person.
3. Choosing not to love is a form of self-righteousness
One of the most demanding groups of people you love are those who have hurt you. However, the Bible does not add that one is hurt by someone as a reason not to love them. Jesus made it clear to Matthew:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:43-44).
When someone has hurt you, you are likely to use that hurt as a reason to justify not loving them. Here’s the problem: You don’t understand what you’re really saying. When you choose not to love someone, you are saying that they don’t deserve your love or that they don’t deserve your love.
Could there be a more self-righteous statement than that?
Think of all the times we have hurt God with our sin and disobedience. We don’t deserve his love, but he still gives it. He gives it not because we deserve it but because we need it. In the same way, we don’t love people because they deserve it. We love them because we have been recipients of God’s great and submissive love. So the same way you received love should be the same way you give love.
4. Love does not mean you like the person or that you will get along with that person
Sometimes we think that loving someone means we have to maintain a close relationship with them. This is not always true. Sometimes there can be personality clashes or people you don’t get along with very well. These can be friends or even some family members. In these cases, sometimes it only makes sense to not be too close to them. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t love them. It just means you might have to do it remotely.
Corinthians tells us that love is patient, kind, not jealous or rude. It is not irritable and does not keep a criminal record. You may not like or agree with a person, but you can still be kind, patient, and not rude. You can care about their welfare and not keep a record of their wrong doings. Let’s not forget that you can also pray for them. Be careful what you pray for For they don’t against their.
There is one person in my life who is harder for me to love than others. Something about his personality and the way he treated me and other people rubs me the wrong way. However, that doesn’t give me permission not to love him. I can still be kind, patient, not rude if I ever meet him. I may keep my distance, but I can still love him. If I choose not to love him, I am saying that he is not worthy of my love, which is a form of self-righteousness, and that is a sin.
One caveat: If you are married, then this principle will apply differently. The main difference is that you have made a commitment to your husband to be with him until death do you part. This covenant requires you to resolve any differences you and your spouse may have.
5. Love does not mean general acceptance
The world has a wrong view of love. He often defines love as acceptance. According to the world, the proof that you love the person is that you love their behavior, their lifestyle and everything about them. This is not true. Love means you love the person. It doesn’t require you to love their behavior. God loved us while we were sinners, but he did not and does not love the sins we commit.
There may be people in your life who engage in sinful lifestyles that you do not approve of. This does not give you permission to be self-righteous and judgmental. But, we must continue to love the person in the same way that God still loves sinners today. The challenge we have is to separate the behavior from the person. We often tie them together and often see their sin and define them by their sin.
That is why God’s love is so different. He looks at our sinful condition and sees our need. Sometimes as Christians we can be quick to judge and when that happens we lose our compassion. All we see is their sin and we do not see their need to be freed from that sin.
When Jesus walked the earth, He had this habit of sitting and eating with sinners. He never accepted their sinful lifestyle, condoned their sin, or dealt with it. However, he knew they were lost without him, so he had to try to reach them. After all, that’s what he came for.
Let’s make sure we love sinners and recognize that loving the sinner does not mean we have to love and accept their sin. As we love them, the hope is that they will experience God’s love and recognize that He wants to call them out of their sin and into a new life in Christ.
6. Loving like Jesus takes courage
“Later, Levi invited Jesus and his disciples to his house as dinner guests, along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners. (There were many such people among the followers of Jesus)” (Mark 2:15NLT).
Tax collectors were among the worst sinners at that time and people hated them. However, we find Jesus in Levi’s house with other tax collectors and disreputable sinners sitting and having a meal. Here’s how the Pharisees responded.
“But when the teachers of the religious law who were Pharisees saw him eating with tax collectors and other sinners, they asked his disciples: Why does he eat with such scum?” (Mark 2:16NLT).
If social media had existed then, I’m sure this image of Jesus eating with sinners would have gone viral. A Pharisee would have posted this with a caption, Jesus eats scum or Jesus with fraudulent tax collectors and other horrible sinners.
Jesus knew he would get backlash from the religious leaders, yet he did it anyway. This is because love takes courage. If you are going to love like Jesus, you will also need some courage. To love people, especially sinners and those whom we rightly deem unworthy of our love, is to build bridges. When you seek to do this, sometimes the ones who won’t like the bridge you’re trying to build are those in the church. But build them anyway because we have a responsibility to reach the lost with the gospel and hunt down sheep that may have gone astray. This will take courage, but remember that if we don’t do it, no one else will.
Final thought
As you move forward and choose to love people, I will leave you with a thought that sums up why we should be people who love others.
“A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34-35).
Photo: ©Getty Images/carles miro
