03/12/2019
Do you love those around you? I am not talking about your wife and children, but also your neighbors who you might not like so much. How about those who are detestable, or who hate you; do you love those? Well, if you are to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, and obey his teaching, then you should love them all.
“"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”
Matthew 5:43-45 ESV
I asked you in my opening paragraph if you loved those who you might not like so much, and I asked this because I have heard it taught that it is alright (acceptable) to not like someone, and that this is not a requirement of love. Some teach that liking and loving are scripturally different, but if that is true then how do we love our enemies and those who persecute us? Our commandment is to love our neighbors without differentiation, and Jesus knew that was not an easy thing to do; listen to his words...
“For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?”
Matthew 5:46-47 ESV
Ours is to love all our neighbors... not just a select few, or to split hairs by saying that we can love someone without liking them. When we teach ourselves to like someone it leads us to love them; it is the first step. We are told to love them as ourselves, well can you love yourself without first liking who you are?
“The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."”
Mark 12:31 ESV
I once knew a bully who was bitter and mean to everyone who he came in contact with. When you would do something as simple as say “good morning” to him it was met by an angry response and often by his cussing at you. When I would see him coming, I would cringe because I knew the encounter was not going to be good. One day I was standing in the front yard of my parent’s home when an old pickup truck came speeding down the street in front of their house. Suddenly I had a terrible pain in my neck... the bully had shot me with a pellet rifle from the back of the truck. At that moment I really didn’t like this boy, and I certainly wasn’t loving him.
It took me a while to get over that incident, but eventually the swollen red welt went down and my neck returned to normal. I was thankful he hadn’t put out my eye. So how could I possibly love this boy? Surely there must have been a clause in Jesus’ commandment that allowed me to dislike this one guy! I knew where he lived, it was somewhere at the end of a country road called Cinder Bed Road. My friends and I were afraid to go down there for fear we might get beaten up... or worse.
My feelings for this boy began to change when one day I was sitting on the bench outside the little post office and one room store near my house. On this day I heard the old beat up pickup coming up the hill to the store. The truck skidded to a halt in front of me and there in the back was the bully, along with several of his younger brothers and sisters... they were dirty, dressed in rags, and their hair was unkempt. In a gruff and threatening tone the father told them to stay in the truck and went storming in to get his mail. The boy saw me sitting on the bench with a soda pop, and when his father was out of sight he jumped out of the truck and headed my way. I dreaded what I knew was coming next, but the screen door opened and his father reappeared. I saw terror in the bully’s face, and his father immediately grabbed him by the arm and began to beat him as he told the boy “Didn’t I tell you to stay in the truck?” This was not a spanking (which was common to most boys in those days), but a severe beating that left large bruises and could have hurt him terribly. Then he lifted the boy by the arm and swung him up and over the side of the truck where he released him to fly into the bed of the pickup. I knew immediately why this boy was the way he was... he was terribly abused, and not taken care of. It was then that I began to look at him differently, and spoke to him when I would see him, even though I knew what the response would be. I learned to like those things about him that were likable, and to love the others things about him that my liking him made possible. How could anyone be normal when raised in such a manner.
When I learned to drive I gained enough courage to drive down Cinder Bed Road, and there at the end of the road was an old shack with no screens on the open windows, and old rusting cars and trucks cluttering the dirt yard. Playing among the trash were a couple of young kids covered in dirt. I turned my car around and quickly headed in the other direction... I was afraid of this place.
God loves us, and He also loves this childhood bully and his brothers and sisters. I am certain that God even finds something in that abusive father to love... although for the life of me I can’t imagine what that might be. When I look at myself I know that I am undeserving of God’s grace, and the sacrifice that Jesus made for me, so I understand how He also loves the bully, and those dirty kids on Cinder Bed Road.
Loving our neighbors is often a hard thing to do, but we only see what is revealed to us, while God is able to look into our very hearts. Yes it took me a while to love this rough boy with the black greased back hair, but eventually I did, and it made me a better man in the process. By seeing him for who he was, I learned how not liking what you are can keep you from loving yourself, and those around you. Over the years I have prayed for those children, and I came to understand that when it rained on my house in my nice neighborhood with flowers and concrete driveways... it was also raining on Cinder Bed Road with its old rundown house, rusting cars, muddy drive, and children who feared their father’s hand.
I don’t know about the nature of the reward that scripture attributes to loving those that appear unlovable; maybe God has a special reward for us, but there is also a reward that you feel inside, and as it warms you it also gives you a peace that most certainly is God’s.
“But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.”
Luke 6:35-36 ESV
Prayer:
Father, thank you for the love you show me each and every day. Thank you Holy Father for the lessons regarding love that your son Jesus teaches us; not only by His words, but by His obedience to your will as He offered Himself as a sacrifice for our salvation, and redemption. Thank you Merciful Father for the lessons I learned as I witnessed the suffering and hardships endured on Cinder Bed Road, and hear me Father as I continue to pray that the legacy of the abuse that lived there has come to an end. Help me Father to love the bullies, and the abusers who prey on others. Help me Merciful Father to see the soul in each person as you do, and to like what I can, and love the rest. Holy Spirit lead us in liking ourselves despite the circumstances surrounding us so that we may also love who we are, and by so doing love all those around us. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you my God who loves us despite our shortcomings, and found it in your heart to offer up your only begotten Son to redeem us from sin. Call out to the souls of thieves, murderers, cheats, coveters, and even the abusers of children, so that an end can come to sin, and lives be changed by your love. Praised be your name Father, and great is your glory that flows to you from your love, goodness, mercy, and grace.
“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,”
Ephesians 2:1-6 ESV
Rich Forbes