It is easy to love someone who is loving but a completely different thing to love someone who is unlovely. It requires a special kind of love that looks beyond the acts of meanness and selfishness. The Bible speaks of different kinds of love; love for fellowman, love for one’s brother, love for your parents, love for your spouse, love for your child and love for God.
Our best example was Jesus Christ in the way He demonstrated love towards others. Being divine, He knew the past, the present and the future. It was no accident when He chose His 12 disciples. He knew them better than they knew themselves yet He chose one of them that was going to betray Him. He also knew that this same disciple, Judas Iscariot, was partial to money yet He allowed him to manage the finances. Nevertheless, Jesus was patient, kind and understanding with His disciples.
What does it require to love someone who outwardly goes against you, slanders your name, mistreats you and still sits down to eat dinner with you? It requires a very special type of love to still repay good for evil. Sometimes it is easy to distinguish a person with evil intent towards you. Other times it can be a sugar coated pill. There are many Brutus’s around us; people whom you think are your bosom pals but they end up stabbing you in the back. Are we to love such people? Yes! Leviticus 19:18 says, “Thou shall love thy neighbour as thyself.”
Loving the unlovely is only possible if you walk in the shadow of the Lord Jesus Christ, who, despite His state as a man, displayed the God state we are able to follow. On the cross, He said to God the Father in Luke 22:42, “Not my will be done but Yours.” Just remember Philippians 4:13 says, “I CAN do all things through Christ who strengthen me.” So we can love the unlovely with a Christ-like love. □
Linda Pearl
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