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PROGRAM D-7775
I want to finish my thoughts on loving unlovable people. Instead of feeling guilty because you don’t like certain people, acknowledge that they are not likable to you, but agree with God that you are willing to love them. Love them with his kind of love—agape love—which is an action, not a feeling.
It always helps to remember that we’re often unlikable to God, yet he never stops loving us. And it is that kind of love that should overflow from our lives to others. When that happens—when others can see that we can love people who are not likable—we will have one of the strongest witnesses of God’s grace we can ever have. You know if you can learn to love people you don’t like, it has to be a miracle right from God. And that miracle in your life can cause others to be thirsty for the eternal water that Jesus offers, which they see demonstrated in your life.
Here’s my suggestion: Make a plan to love those people you don’t like. First, list the people you find it difficult to like. Include what it is about them that makes them unlikable to you. Then, choose one unlikable person per week to focus on. Pray for that specific person each day of that week. Pray for the things you see in their lives that make them so unlikable. Pray that God will help you to see and understand them the way he does. Pray for God’s love to overflow from you to that person in some specific way sometime during the week.
If you will focus on one person per week and keep going through that list, what you’ll discover is that God can even change your feelings toward them. But regardless, you will be showing love to those unlikable people, and the changes you will see in yourself will astound you.
You see, when you start learning to love them, they no longer have the ability to get to you like they used to. Oh, they may still have irritating habits and personalities, but they just will not bug you like before. I affirm to you again that living by biblical principles really works! I challenge you to try it and learn to love the people you don’t like! What a miracle and what a testimony that will be for Jesus.