Hi how was your week? Mine was good except a new journey has started for my oldest son. One I didn’t envision but nevertheless one we must walk through. My question to you and me this week is what role don’t you like. God spoke to me a few weeks ago about a person I was having trouble with. He said to me you love the person, you love their role as this, you just don’t agree with this role they’re playing. It gave me a whole new perspective on loving people.
In Luke 10: 25 to 37, we find the story of the Good Samaritan. It starts off with a question – what shall we do to inherit eternal life. Jesus said to the person basically – what do you think the law says. The person says love the Lord your God and love your neighbour as yourself. Then the person says but who is my neighbour. You see, we find it easy to love God but harder to love people. I believe the reason for this is that we don’t distinguish the person themselves from the role or from their actions.
The person speaking has tied love in this verse for our neighbour with our love for God. He is misquoting the Old Testament to get Jesus’ attention. Love your neighbour in the Old Testament was more like a friendship love rather than an agape love, which it is here. Agape love means love like God loves. It is an exercise of our will in deliberate choice. We choose to love God when we give our hearts to Him and we make that choice everyday in our actions.
But what about with our neighbour, which is all people in general. We are supposed to love them agape too. But loving someone doesn’t mean agreeing with all of their actions. For example, you have love for your children but that doesn’t mean you agree with them when they lie to you or even steal a biscuit. The actions are wrong and should be separated from the person. In the same way, God loves us but doesn’t like it when we sin.
We need to separate the role the person is playing and their actions from themselves. Jesus died for all people on the cross because God so loved the world. The world did not yet know God but there was a love there for all of us that is shown by God. We need to do the same.
As you go through this week and you think you don’t like someone, remind yourself that it is only their actions you don’t like or the role they’re playing. By role, I mean boyfriend, girlfriend, cheater, liar, gossiper etc. We need to deliberately love the person.
Have an amazing week and love people but don’t forget to love you, as well.
Bless you heaps
Karen
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