PEOPLE ARE TOUGH TO LOVE

KEY VERSES: I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven (Mat 5:44-45a) and, Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven. (Mat 18:21-22)

  Love is hard work, is one of my repeated expressions. Spiritual love is not emotional but rational. Jesus realized that everyone prefers to be loved, and encouraged everyone to love one another, as Jesus loves them, and as everyone loves themselves. In fact, love is the pre-requisite for eternal life. Love is not suggested but commanded (John 15:17), and if one have not loved, then to whom is he or she a disciple, as is written, “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another (John 13:35).  The apostle John was an authority on love so much so that Jesus called him “The Beloved.” 

  The points that John and Jesus were trying to get across is that love is not optional, is hard work, and is expected. The ability to love one another and God is the Way to gain entry into Heaven. How are Christians assured of their salvation? If they love God intensely and others as themselves. 

  Christians surely hate themselves because they seem to hate others so much. Mankind’s problem is that we are “as God” (Gen 3:5); not God, but claiming the authority that only God has. 

  God loves everyone, but since mankind thinks that they are superior to God, they have the false perception that they have a right to choose who to love and who to hate! That is a superior attitude, but to enter into Heaven requires meekness (or humility; Mat 5:5). There is no other way for entry into Heaven except through love. As a test for reverence to God’s Will, He requires that we love others just as He does.

  “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life (John 3:16). “The world” in that verse, is everyone: the good and the bad; His friends and His enemies, and we are to love friends and enemies in the same manner. The question is, “How can one claim to love their enemies when they cannot do the easy thing and love their friends?” Spiritual love is caring intensely for the well-being of another; specifically, that their destiny is eternal life! The ability to forgive is not merely excusing the wrongs of others but loving them intensely thereafter. 

  Jesus said to forgive seventy times seven. That is not meant to be a specific number of times, but rhetorically, never cease forgiving and never cease from loving. Peter denied Christ thrice. Jesus was about to die because he loved Peter so much, and everyone as well. With that extreme love, Peter had the audacity to deny the one who loved him so! Peter could not even love the one who would die for him, let alone those who despised him. Jesus would have been justified in hating Peter, but he maintained his love. Jesus would have been justified to despise the Pharisees and scribes, but he loved them so much that he died for them. Jesus so loved his Roman assassins so intensely that he said, “Forgive them Father for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). That’s how to implement hard love!

  On the other hand, those who claim to be righteous and godly are unforgiving and angry people. Jesus was about to be killed yet he loved his enemies and died for them so that they could live. For most people, they kill their fellow men by hatred: “Whosoever hateth his brother (another) is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him” (1 John 3:15). Yet many still have the audacity to maintain that they are goodly men and women!

The thing that I hate about myself is the difficulty in loving God’s enemies. Jesus does not want that from me for he loved them so! Love is so difficult that family members cannot even love their so-called “loved ones!” Jesus loved the centurions as they thrust a sword into his side as he was in agony from crucifixion. Yet people can’t even love those with whom they disagree. And you wonder why God is angry with us!

I am the same way with my family. Because they can’t love one another and claim to be good, pains me. I am angry inside, not for me, but for them. I want that they not perish, but Jesus said that those who do not love will perish. My desire is that my family love one another, not only to please me, but to please God.

  I have worked on the relationship between two family members in excess of twenty-five years and have prayed for unity between the two. It seems that I have failed because people seem to thrive on hatred. Anyone that upsets their selfish little world, in their eyes, deserve hatred and persecution. One relative is willing, but the other is an angry man! According to him, he will die despising his close relative. The sad thing, that on his death bed, he will lie there with sheets of hatred and unable in his weakness to remove it. Hatred has gravity; Satan pushes down for the world to have hatred so intense that a person would rather face an angry God than relent of his hatred. Jesus - the Judge - will say, “I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity” (Mat 7:23).

  That’s what I never want my loved one to hear! I hurt inside because those who I love cannot love one another. I have some people who have hated me for years, but say that the practice Christianity. They do not; they practice murder. Their hatred kills my soul. I, as you are as well, was made in the image of God. He only wants to be loved, and so do most people. Those who do not want to love or be loved are in danger of Hell-fire. Anger is the way sinners rationalize and manifest hatred. 

  I think of an instance in the Bible: David loved King Saul intensely because Saul was anointed by God to be His king. Saul had no reason to fear nor hate David as David had rejected the throne of Saul, and loved him as a father. Saul rationalized his vengeance against David, and tried to kill him often. David, on the other hand, had plenty of opportunities to kill Saul but did not! Saul was David’s enemy who wronged him often and severely. All the while, David remained faithful and loving to the king, and became angry at the one who killed Saul. David, like the Son of David (Jesus), loved without qualification. David had a right to hate Saul but continued in his love. He forgave Saul “seventy times seven” metaphorically as he never ceased to love Saul. 

  That’s what Jesus wants with us. He doesn’t want false forgiveness where people say, “I will forgive but never forget!” David forgave and put it behind him, as Jesus did to the angry mob who crucified him. What if Jesus claimed to forgive, but always held it against us? That would not be love! How can Christians claim to forget yet maintain their case against another? I would not be able to sleep with my conscious in chaos! 

  One of my haters has hated me for a quarter century, yet I don’t hate him, and if he would forget whatever I wronged him with, I would be ready to be great friends. That’s the same with anyone who is angry with me. I don’t care whether I am right or wrong… I am ready to humble myself and continue in love. Before we play-act as Christians, we are to reconcile not only with those who we have wronged, but with those who have wronged us (Mat 5:24).

  Jesus was in agony and sweated blood (Luke 22:44). He wasn’t in agony over his impending death, but because of the angry mob whose thirst for vengeance had to be satisfied. Jesus credited the greater sin to the angry mob than he did to his executioners (John 19:11). Their anger and hatred were the murderers of Jesus. That’s why he equivocated hatred with murder. Anger, again, is an expression of hatred, and is merely because self-centered little worlds of people have been upset.

  Rational people do not rationalize. They admit that sometimes they may be wrong, and understand that others may do wrong to them as well. They should not want anger from others nor be angry with others. Anger is self-imprisonment. Angry people have chains on them, and claim not to mind the chains, but all the while only want to be loved and are upset because they are not treated up to their own expectations. 

  Just as Jesus was in agony because his “children” hated him and others who he loved, I agonize over those I love who seem incapable of genuine love for me or their friends of relatives. I awakened at 2:00 am in agony for those I love; not for my sake, but for their sake. Whose will do angry people do? They have the false perception that they are independently exercising their privilege to love or not, but actually are chained to the will of Satan. Naïve people do the Devil’s will, thinking it is their own. He laughs at them because it undermines God. 

  As a Christian and disciple of Christ, when I am angry and unforgiving, I hate my true self. Anger with myself has humbled me. I still feel badly about those whom I have wronged. I am angry with myself at this moment for not being a full-time father when my children were in their informative years. I have sorrow because I either did not operationalize love or failed to teach my children God’s Will appropriately. I delivered my children into the hands of teachers and preachers, but did not love them so much that I wanted them not to perish. I thought that I brought my children up in the way of the Lord with the hope that they would return to it, but I failed. I agonize about me and over them, as I do my brothers and sister who I loved, but not so intensely that I epitomized God to them.

  Jesus could not stand the thought of dying and leaving behind those who were angered by him. Likewise, I dread giving up the ghost knowing that some hate me, and some hate each other. Why is that? Because I love them so that I wish that I could sweat or cry blood on their behalf. The closest that I have come is with intense desperation that I can’t “fix” other people, as I can’t fix myself. Only God can fix others or me. I need fixing and so does everyone else, but foolish people don’t want to be fixed!

  Let’s say that terminal cancer has revealed itself this morning, and you have only until the evening to get your life fixed in preparation for death. What would you do with those few hours? Some would eat heartily or watch their favorite movie. I would desire to leave the world and leave my anger and hatred behind. A rational person would make amends not only to those who they have wronged, but even those with whom they are angry. Why wait until death to do what is right? You may not have the soft heart to do that later because YOU interfere with God’s Will. 

  I told one whom I love that after I am deceased, I will leave a message for my family. This commentary will likely not be read in my lifetime by my loved ones, but possibly will when they really want to know who I was. My hope that after I’m gone, my family and close friends will love me as they will, at that time, know my heart, and that they will love one another; if for nothing else, in reverence to me. 

  I know how God feels about me, because I know how I feel about those whom I love. Reverence for us parents are our children loving one another and reverence for God is His children loving one another. That’s how parents are shown love and is certainly how God’s children show Him love.

  Us humans are tough to love but God did it anyway. We are to do the same if we revere God.