Unlovables
“This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.”
Today’s Text: 1 John 5:1-12 (Living Life Daily Devotional)
People can be awfully hard to love. Even the ones we love can be awfully hard to love, and that is because of sin—their sin and our sin. But the Apostle John gets to the crux of the matter, as far as unlovable people loving unlovable people is concerned: “to keep His commands.”
But how in the world can he say that God’s commands to love unlovable people are “not burdensome?” Loving people we love is burdensome enough. Isn’t loving unlovable people even more burdensome? Loving unlovable people can seem like getting a tooth pulled without anesthetic or like poking oneself in the eye!
John goes on to say that God’s commands are not burdensome because “everyone born of God overcomes the world.” In other words, loving unlovable people is a burden when we orient our hearts toward the ways of the world.
For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world.
— 1 John 2:16
And therefore, the thing that empowers us to overcome “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” so that WE CAN love unlovable people, is FAITH. When we have faith, obeying God’s commands to love unlovable people are not burdensome.
Because when we have faith, we love God more than we love our own flesh and pride. When we have faith, we recognize that God knows what is best for us. When we have faith, we know that God loves us more than we even love ourselves. After all, He sent His one and only Son to suffer the wrath that was due to us, so that we might be reconciled to Him through faith and have eternal life in His kingdom.
Loving people we do not already love—especially, loving people we do not want to love—is the clearest evidence of living in faith, because it is the primary and most important application of faith in Christ. And if we love people we do not want to love, how much more will we love people we want to love. And if we love people we do not want to love because of faith, God will do for us anything we ask according to His revealed will (Genesis 1:1-Revelation 22:21).
Father, You are the Author of our salvation. You have determined the rules by which this world operates. And yet, we try to side-step Your rules, and in so doing, we make a mess of this world and our lives. Forgive us. But thank You for giving us a way to eternal life. Thank You for the sacrifice of our Lord. Thank You for loving us first. Give us wisdom and faith to love in the way that You love us. In Jesus’s name. Amen.
