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PROGRAM D-7771
During Valentine’s week our minds go toward the people in our lives that we really love. But my question to you is, do you have people in your life that you really don’t like—much less love? If you’re human, there are bound to be some of those people around. And it seems to me that we run into these people on our jobs quite often.
Jesus said the greatest commandments are to love God and love people, but he didn’t say we have to like everyone. Yes, even Christ-followers have people in their lives they do not like. But we are told to love people, even those we don’t like:
“And this commandment we have from God, that the one who loves God should love his brother also” (1 John 4:21).
Jesus said: “Love your enemies. For if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them” (Luke 6:32 & 35).
In our own human estimation of what love is, we think that if we cannot like someone, we conclude that we cannot love them either. Don’t we have to like people before we can love them? How can we love someone we don’t like?
Well, part of the problem is that we misunderstand the word love. The kind of love that we need in order to love people we don’t like is God’s kind of love, which is called agape love. Now, agape love is not a feeling. Though we may experience nice feelings, agape love does not depend on how we feel or how others feel about us. We can express agape love whether the feelings are present or absent, whether they are good or bad. This kind of love is not a feeling.
Agape love is an action. The Bible tells us that we know that God loves us because he sent his Son into the world to redeem us. We know that Jesus loves us because he gave his life. The Bible says, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man give his life for a friend.” And God says that he will know that we love him if we keep his commandments. God’s kind of love is an action, not a feeling.
Now, that really is good news, because it says that you can love people toward whom you do not necessarily have good feelings.