Love is a Choice

           People, people, people! Our lives are full of them. Some are sweet and many are sour. It is so easy to run into people that rub us the wrong way or those that are just plain rude. We have all met them or seen them, they are the people that speed up when you pull out on the road. They are the neighbor that invites themselves over, calls a thousand times a day, drops their kids off at your house all the time. They are your typical careless, forgetful, loud, blissfully unaware “friend”. They are not mean or bad, they are just bothersome.

When we meet with these people, for some reason we do not see a need to love them because they are so obnoxious. We feel completely justified in looking down on them and their “oh so obvious faults”, and proud of ourselves when we invite them over for tea or show them some kind of small service. We feel a sense of benevolence at our own toleration for these kinds of people.

  

But as followers of Christ we have a different harder path to take. We are not only to treat them with the kindness if Christ, but are commanded to love. Yes, I said love. Even a non -believer can treat the beautiful, polite, funny people with kindness and respect. Matt 5:44-47 “But I tell you love your enemies and pray for those that persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than the others? Do not the pagans do that? Be perfect therefore as your heavenly Father is perfect.”  We are called as Christians to show that same respect and love to the ugly, rude, and obnoxious ones in our lives. The Bible tells us to love our enemies. These people are not even enemies, but just normal sinful people (like the whole human race)!!!

The good news is we do not have to struggle in this alone.  Jesus knows our own frailty in the flesh and how much we want to cling to our own selfish feelings, so He gave us a helper. The Holy Spirit can work wonders if you call on the name of the Lord, He will answer us.  Now my Mother was (is) a very happy, friendly, lovable, not easily angered or annoyed kind of person. But that did not mean she was immune to irritation. I remember a few people getting on my mom’s nerves. I particularly remember my mom’s reaction after being annoyed.  After she realized that she did not like someone, she cried out to God and confessed her un-love for that person. She would then bless them in the Spirit and ask God to give her a love (like Christ) for that person. And the amazing thing is, it worked!!! I could not believe it, once we relinquish our own feelings and ask the Lord to rule over them, He changes our hearts for His glory!

My mom found herself not only tolerating these people but actually enjoying their company and overlooking the obnoxiousness in love.  She learned to see past the outside and see the person Christ loved enough to die for! She came to love those friends.

That was very foreign to me because everyone has different ideas on the word “love”.  I thought love was only for those so wonderful that you simply could not help expressing emotion to match their wonderfulness and that emotion was “love”.   I never saw it as something you can make yourself do or feel or think.  A purposed Christ-like love is the kind of love I need to have! As a daughter of the Most High I want to choose to love in obedience to my Father. Even when we feel no natural love for a person,God bestows the supernatural if we choose to use it. Love is a choice!  

^“Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.  He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.” 1 John 4:7-8