Love Others

"Humility says, 'I see your instructions. But maybe in some of this I am wrong.'"

WE DON’T recognize hatred. We picture the more violent end of it, the taking of a life, but where restlessness wanders within us, we overlook it. Make excuses. To love someone is to not hate them. To hate them is to not love them.

Jesus stared prophecy in the face, knowing who they were and why they did what they did, yet loved them. Judas is our primary example. He knew Judas would betray Him. He still taught him and sent him out with the others to preach the gospel, lay hands on the sick, and cast out devils. The Pharisees are other examples. He knew they’d hang Him on the tree and made no attempt to stop them. He pleaded with them, tried to turn their eyes toward the love of God displayed in Old Covenant Law, and He saved a few. Nicodemus is one example. He carried spices for Jesus’ burial. But what they couldn’t see that they would do, and all they spoke over themselves that propelled them forward, He did not prevent.

“When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it. Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us, and on our children.” (Matthew 27:24-25)

There is also the thief. One minute he’s deriding Jesus, the next he’s defending him. And he became the first one to enter Paradise after Jesus’ death.

I’ve heard love preached many ways. What most of them lacked was true knowledge of the love of God. Until you’ve been the outcast who is given grace, until you’ve stared sin and death full in the face on such a scale, you cannot realize how deep and high, wide and full, God’s love truly is. Until you’ve stood at the feet of the Savior and drank in His Presence, you will not see the magnitude of His sacrifice. Or His victory. The truth is, loving others is easy in the light of His goodness. Knowing His love, you can only give love.

Turn to Him and ask Him, “Why do I still struggle with this?” Then acknowledge your shallowness. We are forever thinking we’ve risen higher than we truly are. We’re not where we were, so we assume we’re “nearly there,” but there is always more to Him, a nearer place, a closer position, a greater understanding. Humility says, “I accept this spot where you’re standing with me, not based on what I have accomplished but on who you are in me.” Humility says, “I see your instructions. But maybe in some of this I am wrong.” I joked with Him about heaven in that manner. What is the glimpse I have had but a breath? Apply it now to earth and our emotions. God gave us emotions. Two of them are paired with righteousness for our blessing – joy and peace. But anger and fear are two which lead to confusion and strife and other evil behaviors (James 3:16).

“For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” (Romans 14:17)

I feel anger far less, having seen Jesus. I have no strife with people, having stared eye-to-eye with death. My frustration comes hearing what should not come from the church. When God bids you to love others, to love your enemies, this is such a simple thing meant to be held dearly to the heart. Where is the meekness, the gentleness of our Savior who ate with sinners, who healed all who sought for Him in multitudes of thousands? Why do you not treasure those words spoken to you? Don’t make of them head knowledge, make them your heart’s wisdom. Allow them to change you from who you are to who He desires you to be, letting go of all that is your decision making, your justifying, your blindness. Because that is the deepest error in judgment, that you cannot see but act as if you do.

Where I have fallen has become my steppingstone. Where I had to push forward and overcome myself, is now my point of change. There, at that place, I pivoted, turning toward Him and away from me. I became willing to give up who I planned to be in favor of what He is asking. For you can’t change devils. Unclean spirits are always the same, lost in the violence of terror and hatred, they can’t be made to walk upright. And God won’t help them. But He died for you, so that you wouldn’t think like them. I refuse to think like them. I won’t see people from their point-of-view, not even in the minutest way.

Then look Jesus in the face, how?

Do you get this issue? He was God in heavenly places, all-powerful, Jehovah. Then He was a baby, who relied on his parents. He needed feeding and cleaning and teaching to walk, to talk. He became a man who died at age 33, condemned by hate. He gave up all He was so that we’d love on the scale He did. That He does. We can’t make light of that. Not anymore.

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13)

Photo by menachem weinreb on Unsplash


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com