Jesus said the greatest command is to love God, but the second greatest command is to love people. I will admit that sometimes loving people seems like a much bigger challenge than loving God. Yet we are commanded throughout the Bible to love people. So to help you, I want to share six principles that will help you do this.
The reason God can command every believer to love is because he loved us first. This truth alone removes every excuse you could possibly give for not loving other people. Any reason you want to bring as evidence why you should not love someone gets overturned by the truth that God loved you first.
God did not love you when you were good or had everything together. He loved you when you were engaged in your sin, at your worst, when you weren’t even thinking about him. If he can love you when you were at your lowest moments, then surely you can show that same kind of love to other people.
2. Love Is Not an Emotional Response, It Is a Decision of the Will
While there are emotional aspects of love, the root of love has nothing to do with emotions. The truth is we don’t feel to love, we will to love. If love was based on our feelings or emotions, then love would be unstable, unsteady, and unpredictable. Your love would change from day to day and moment to moment just as your emotions do.
Since love is based on your will, that means whether you love someone is a matter of choice. Choosing to love is intentional. That also means choosing not to love is intentional too. We all have people in our lives who are easier to love than others, but the command does not change. When you think of the most difficult person in your life to love, remember that God loved you first. Remembering that truth will help you to choose to love that person.
3. Choosing Not to Love Is a Form of Self-Righteousness
One of the most challenging groups of people to love are those who have hurt you. However, the Bible does not add being hurt by someone as a reason for not loving them. Jesus said it plainly in Matthew:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you’” (Matthew 5:43-44).
When someone has hurt you, it is possible you will use that hurt as a reason to justify why you won’t love them. Here’s the problem: You don’t understand what you are really saying. When you choose not to love someone, you are saying they are not worthy of your love or they don’t deserve your love.
Could there be a more self-righteous statement than that?
Consider all the times we have hurt God by our sin and disobedience. We don’t deserve his love, but he still gives it anyway. He gives it not because we deserve it but because we need it. In the same way, we don’t love people because they deserve it. We love them because we have been recipients of God’s great and underserved love. So, the same manner you have received love should be the same manner in which you give love.
4. Love Does Not Mean You Like the Person or That You Will Get Along with That Person
Sometimes we think to love someone means we must maintain a close relationship with them. This is not always true. Sometimes there may be personality clashes or people you don’t get along with very well. These can be friends or even some family members. In these cases, sometimes it only makes sense to not be too close to them. However, that does not mean you cannot love them. It just means you may have to do it from a distance.
Corinthians tells us love is patient, kind, not jealous or rude. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. You may not like or agree with a person, but you can still be kind, patient, and not rude. You can care about their well-being and not keep a record of their wrong doings. Let’s not forget you can also pray for them. Notice you pray for them not against them.
There is one person in my life who is more difficult for me to love than others. Something about his personality and the way he has treated me and other people rubs me the wrong way. However, this does not give me license not to love him. I can still be kind, patient, not rude if I ever encounter him. I may keep my distance, but I can still love him. If I choose not to love him, I am saying he is not worthy of my love, which is a form of self-righteousness, and that is sin.
One caveat: If you are married, then this principle will apply differently. The main difference is you have made a commitment to your spouse to be with them until death do you part. That covenant requires you to work out any potential differences you and your spouse may have.
5. Love Does Not Mean Blanket Acceptance
The world has a misguided view of love. It often defines love as acceptance. According to the world, the evidence you love the person is you love their behavior, their lifestyle, and everything about them. That is not true. Love means you love the person. It does not require you to love their behavior. God loved us while we were sinners, but he did not and does not love the sins we commit.
There may be people in your life who are engaged in sinful lifestyles you don’t approve of. That does not give you permission to be self-righteous and judgmental. But, we must continue to love the person the same way God still loves sinners today. The challenge we have is separating the behavior from the person. We often tie them together and we often see their sin and define them by their sin.
This is why God’s love is so different. He looks at our sinful condition and sees our need. Sometimes as Christians we can be quick to judge and when that happens, we lose our compassion. All we see is their sin and we don’t see their need to be set free from that sin.
When Jesus walked the earth, he had this habit of sitting and eating with sinners. Never once did he accept their sinful lifestyle, condone their sin, or engage in it. However, he knew that they were lost without him, so he had to attempt to reach them. After all, that is why he came.
Let’s make sure we are loving sinners and recognizing that loving the sinner does not mean we must love and accept their sin. As we love them, the hope is they would experience the love of God and recognize he wants to call them out of their sin and into a new life in Christ.
6. Loving Like Jesus Requires Courage
“Later, Levi invited Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners. (There were many people of this kind among Jesus’ followers)” (Mark 2:15, NLT).
Tax collectors were among the worst sinners at that time, and people hated them. Yet we find Jesus in Levi’s home with other tax collectors and disreputable sinners sitting down and having a meal. Here is how the Pharisees responded.
“But when the teachers of religious law who were Pharisees saw him eating with tax collectors and other sinners, they asked his disciples, ‘Why does he eat with such scum?’” (Mark 2:16, NLT).
If there was social media back then, I am sure this image of Jesus eating with sinners would have gone viral. A Pharisee would have posted this with a caption, Jesus eats with scum or Jesus seen with devious tax collectors and other horrible sinners.
Jesus knew he would get backlash from the religious leaders, yet he did it anyway. That’s because love takes courage. If you are going to love like Jesus, you will need some courage too. Loving people, especially sinners and those we self-righteously deem as unworthy of our love, is about building bridges. When you seek to do this, sometimes the ones who won’t like the bridge you are trying to build are those in the church. But build them anyway because we have a responsibility to reach those who are lost with the gospel and to go after sheep who may have wandered away. This is going to take courage, but remember if we don’t do it, nobody else will.
Final Thought
As you go forward and you choose to love people I will leave you with one thought that sums up why we need to be people who love others.
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34-35).
Photo credit: ©Getty Images/carles miro
