Loving Difficult People.

The greatest command God has given us is love. Love your neighbor as you love yourself.' No other commandment is greater than this." Mark 12:31   Love summarizes all the other commands.  Jesus makes it even harder for us He says if you Love your friends that’s nothing even pagans do so, you are better of if you love your enemy Luke 6:35  Rather, love your enemies, help them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then you will have a great reward. You will be the children of the Most High God. After all, he is kind to unthankful and evil people.  

So these three things remain: faith, hope, and love. But the best one of these is love.1Cor 13:13

The Bible time and again gives us great examples of God’s immense love for us mankind.  The sum total of this love is the love our savior had for us that He went as far as dying for us on the cross.

The people of Jesus’ time were the most difficult; they had stayed rooted in their wrong ways and had gotten comfortable in these.  They saw Jesus as a rebel and one who wanted to take their position, but our Lord ever so loving and gentle continued to preach and teach them.  It was so hard for them to accept this great love that they went ahead and accused Him falsely.  This led to Jesus being crucified.  Look even on the cross while they abused and spat on Him He still prayed for their forgiveness “father forgive them for they know not what they are doing’’

Today as Christians we are faced with situations where we have to show love to people whom we feel do not deserve our love. Friend you might have a husband who spells doom to your life, who does not give you peace, who is trouble with a capital T, as a Christian you ask does he really deserve to be loved by me and my children? You ask what has he ever done to us except bring us misery, he spends all his money on drinking.  You even wish him death, but today the teaching of Christ is clear that this is also a child of God that he deserves to be loved.  Maybe time and again you have loved him and he promised to change but that only was lip service and you now feel its time to say enough is enough.  Remember our Lord entering Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, look at how all were happy and welcomed Him as they sang Hosana, then look at what they did on that Friday...they nailed Him on the Cross calling Him names and spiting on Him. 

Jesus as He faced crucifixion was all alone even His closest friends, the disciples who had promised to be with him all the way abandoned Him but he did not stop loving them. Remember Judas Iscariot if it was up to some of us he would never have been redeemed for the grave mistake he did. But our savior’s love ever so great found a place for him in His heart.  Look at Peter denying Jesus three times at the court but still being the foundation stone of the church today.

It does not matter how many times your loved ones wrong you, take them in prayer and ask God to give you the courage you need to continue loving them. This might not be easy even Jesus asked God to take away the cup of sorrow but with God on our side all things are possible.

“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. Mat 18:15.

So kindred its up to you are you going to hold that grudge?