Love Like He Did

Who would of thought that " a little word" like l-o-v-e would be so hard!? I mean, it's easy to love those easy to love, but what about those people in our life that we have a little less than love for? What do we do with the commandment to "Love God's people?" when the God's people we are encountering are somewhat hard to love? Well, as I have been pondering these things a few avenues of thought have come to mind. First of all, we do nothing in our own strength, but by the strength that Jesus so overwhelmingly supplies us with. We are His hands and feet right? Do you know what this means though? We will love others AS HE DID, powered and fueled by HIM and the way we know how to do this, is by how we KNOW Him. We know Him by how we study Him and learn from Him as we read the Word, and talk with Him. We know how He lived His life by how we poor into the Scriptures. This "ancient" book of truth is more than just a "good read." It is one of the most important ways we can come to know Jesus, how He lived His life, and how we can live and LOVE just like He did. (in His strength). The beauty of being a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ is that we no longer have to rely upon our own human (flawed) ability to overcome, accomplish and thrive in the ways He desired us to live our lives. You know you just feel better when you do a job well don't you? When you finish something the way it ought to be finished? Well t his life, and these relationships we are in and are apart of in this life are just one big long saga of finishing well. It's the long on going construction project of our lives and how we live, and how love is really shaping US. I often times think that what I do is for others, and it is to some degree, but there is always the element that Christ is using that person in my life to shape me as well. And how is He using it to shape me? To look more and more like the one I long to serve and be just like. Jesus.
It is easy to love those who are easy to love. But so many times in this life, when someone says or does something to me that I dislike, it is in my natural (sinful) human nature to then turn around and be a jerk to them. To walk away from them, or to say something to the affect of, "I don't need that in my life.." Sometimes, God uses these difficult relationships my friends to perfect us. To sharpen us. To make us a better image of who we were created to be! You know it's kinda like this: You buy a little old house knowing it has a lot of potential to be something great. You have a vision, and dream for this little house and your excited about getting started in the process of making it be ALL that it can be. So you hire a construction worker to come over and knock down that old moldy wall. Do you think that house (if it could talk) would be real pumped about have  a jackhammer smashed into it? Probably not. But in the end, once the tearing down and wrecking is done, and the new wall is up and the fresh paint is on, and you, the owner of the house steps back and takes a look at the finished product, and the house, (providing it can feel) feels the difference of the new wall,  would say, "Oh yes, this IS better." So it is with us. We have wrecking balls of relationships that we can come up against, but in the end, if we lean into the pain, learn and grow from these difficult people and circumstances, our new walls will look much much better. And we will be more and peace. And isn't it really peace that we are searching for in this life?
How does all this really relate to loving like Jesus did? Jesus was called the "friend of sinners"...the Savior who dined with leapers and prostitutes. The man who loved the "unlovely." So the next time I feel challenged to love the one who is hard to love, I will think of what my Savior would do. I will think, there is a reason that this person in the grocery store is so crabby and if I am to be her vision of Jesus today, what would I do in response to her or his crabby behavior to me, I would respond in the love Jesus gave me to use in just such a circumstances. And how about when my children are screaming bloody murder because they are mad at each-other? How do I respond? Again, I have the option of responding with the strength and patience that Jesus so benevolently supplied me with when He died for my sinful self on the cross of Calvary. I would venture to say most of us are living with about 1/4 of the Jesus potential that we actually have available to us. We are made for much much more my friends. Let us be, and allow Jesus to make us into the beset versions of His hands and feet. This is my prayer for myself...