Love is a Mandate, Not an Option.

I will be the first to admit that love is not always an easy feat.

Some people are so easy to love. They sprinkle kindness everywhere they go and are thoughtful and operate with the purest of intentions. They uplift and encourage. They seek to inspire greatness. They want to help and not hurt. They are gentle and tender-hearted human beings that fill our lives with sunshine and rainbows.

But then there are those who try the very essence of your soul. They are mean-spirited and narcissistic. They inflict pain and don’t give it a second thought. They engage in reckless character assassination and do their best to tear down and dismantle all things good.

But even still, Jesus commands us to love them!

So, here’s where you take a deep breath and say, God help me! Because honestly, it’s easy to love the ‘loveable’ but not so easy to love those who are less than loving towards us. I encountered an individual once and thought to myself, Wow. What a monster! But no sooner than those words left my lips, the Holy Spirit guided me to read Matthew 5:43-48 and I was like, Really Jesus?

Matthew 5 is often referred to as the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus teaches what true righteousness is. You see, it’s not enough to just look or sound righteous. Jesus commands us to be righteous! Jesus said, “Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, loveyour enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you.”

And again, I say, God help me!

Jesus went on to say, “That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? Do not even the publicans do so?” 

Hopefully like me, your heart is beginning to melt at the words of our Lord Jesus. Consider everything He suffered and how He sacrificed His life for all…not just for those who received Him, but especially for those who rejected Him. Listen, not everyone will love you. Not everyone will speak well of you. Some may dig trenches. Some may even dig a grave. But never turn your nose up and never-ever deem them un-loveable. Consider where God has brought you from and return that Grace. Remember, God is Love.