Loving the Unlovable

Have you ever met someone who was difficult to love? Not necessarily romantically, but just to love as another human being. The phileo kind of love that we are exhorted to show to another. I have known a few people like that; really obnoxious personalities with a healthy dose of bad attitudes and manners. Looking at some of them one could never tell. They are what I call "lime people" - deceptively smooth on the outside, sour on the inside. It is quite possible that even as you are reading this, at least one person you know comes readily to mind!

The challenge for some of us is that we share the pews with some of these people. Yes, they are sitting among us in our Churches on Sunday mornings. The unlovable unbeliever we can probably understand, but an unlovable Christian seems like an oxymoron. More times than not we avoid them like the plague. Yet in a way that only Jesus can, He challenges us to break through our apprehensions and judgments when He says rather emphatically to those following Him, "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another" (John 13:34, KJV). Notice this was a "new commandment" because the law did not make such a demand. In this new era, we are to love others the way He loved us and that means, among other things, without conditions. In other words, we cannot say we will love someone if he or she changes their attitudes and behaviors to meet our predetermined standard(s) because God, through Christ, did not impose any such conditions on us.

Paul exhorted the Roman believers, "Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love" (Romans 12:10a), and again, "Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law" (13:8). He realized this was not our natural disposition when he exhorted the Thessalonians, "And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you" (1 Thess. 3:12).

God doesn't expect us to avoid the unlovable among us but to love them. But there is a purpose, as there always is, to what He asks us to do and Jesus pulls the veil apart so we can get a glimpse: "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another" (John 13:35). Our greatest challenge can be the open door to our greatest opportunity. So the next time you see or come across someone you deem unlovable, you are in the right place to show him or her the love of Christ. Consider it a test, and purpose it on your heart that you will ace it. Moreover, by doing so, you will put the devil to shame and Christ will be exalted. Now, that is what I call exciting!