Love

I feel like God put this message on my heart for some time now... Can you love the “unlovable”? I’m not talking about signing up to sponsor a child in Africa or sending a check in the mail to your local food shelter. All those things are nice and, of course, that stuff pleases God too, but I’m talking about loving the person standing in front of you. The person you’ve deemed “unlovable”. The person who really irritates you. The person who looks like a big ‘ole mess. The person whose made all the mistakes you would NEVER make. Someone you may not associate with because of status, financial background or maybe you think they’re “ugly”. The person telling you lies and sending harmful remarks your way. That family member who just wont quit! Society’s outcast. The “untouchables”. THAT’s the unlovable person I am talking about. It’s SO much harder to love them isn’t it? But let me ask you a question: Did God love you when you were “unlovable”? Does God have love for those who are “unlovable”? What does the Bible tell us about the love of Jesus? “But God showed his love for us WHILE we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8 “We love because he loved us first.” 1 John 4:19 UNLOVABLE Adjective :Not attracting or deserving love :incapable of inspiring love or admiration :not having attractive or appealing qualities We all have our own definition of the term and I’m sure you can think of a few people at this very moment that make it truly hard to love them. And I mean love them at a minimum... I’m not even talking about showering them with hugs and kisses; I am simply talking about loving them enough to say “hi”. America is a place where the word “LOVE” gets twisted around and spun upside down all the time. I watch a romantic movie and have to walk away shaking my head. “THAT’S NOT LOVE!”, screams from within because true love requires sacrifice, commitment and hard work. If we take just a brief look at the way Jesus loves us we will see suffering, sadness, rejection, pain, and a whole slew of difficulties he encountered on our behalf. He showed us love by dying on a cross and bearing the weight of our sins! I mean COME ON. I won’t get into my story too much, just yet, or swing open the door of my testimony, but I will tell you this... in the past, the person who gave me the hardest time always won. And by won I mean, they got exactly what they wanted from me/ whatever it was they were fighting for OR they got a permanent vacation from me. I lived for the easy relationship. I found joy in the people who walked, talked, dressed and acted JUST LIKE ME. Why? Because nothing is hard about that. None of those relationships require work. And to be honest, we aren’t taught to W O R K. We’ve been raised in a microwaveable culture. You pop in it for 3 minutes and voila! Magic! You’ve got spaghetti and meatballs! And we all know the spaghetti is too soft and the meatballs are rather hard, but we eat them anyways, because it’s just plan easy. Whatever is easiest works in our favor. Loving the “unlovable” is HARD work. It’s a choice, just like Jesus chose to suffer and die for us on the cross so that we were made right with God. This kind of "hard-work-love", will shake your core beliefs about everything. You will want it to end. You wont FEEL like it. You wont NEED them. You wont want to be around them. But I do believe that God can work a miracle in your heart IF you simply TRY! One step is all he is asking. The footprints behind you are not a single set, but two, because I promise... he’s holding your hand the whole way. LOVE IS OUR GREATEST WEAPON. "Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers a multitude of sins." 1 Peter 4:8