Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him.” 

If you were to ask me if I loved people the answer would be a resounding YES!!  I find myself loving people I don't know.  I often pray God would let me love His people like He does and with a heart like His. I realized how easy it is to say you love people until God gives you a difficult person to love and He puts them right in your face.  That is exactly what happened to me and is happening this week.  God has put someone in my life and in my face that I honestly find hard to love.

What do we do when this happens?  We realize all our talk is being tested and we have a choice.  We can allow God to teach us to love that person or we can pretend we do and let our heart grow in dislike and resentment towards them.  Honestly, it is so much easier to pretend to love them than allowing God to teach you to love them.  Without God's help we can't love people on our own especially those who we don't naturally like.

 

Do you ever find it feels good to dislike someone because you believe there is a reason to?  That's because we are feeding our flesh and that can feel good.  There are times when loving people can hurt and it is hard.  But we are commanded to love them and to die to our flesh.

 

I knew what my choice must be but it has been painful to open my heart and try to love this person.  One reason it is so painful is because I have to admit the wickedness of my own heart.  The Word of God says the heart is wicked and out of it comes evil thoughts.

 

You see, we can deceive ourselves and believe our own words until our words are tested and our heart is examined.  My words "I love everyone" will surely be put to the test when God arranged that I had to spend a week with this person I found so easy to dislike.  All of a sudden it didn't feel so easy, it felt miserable.  I had to talk to her, eat dinner with her and for crying out loud I had to share a room with her.

 

I knew if I didn't soften my heart and let my dislike be replaced with love my week would be miserable but most of all I would not be reflecting Christ and who He is.  Allowing myself to continue to dislike them would have caused me to miss the blessings God had in store for me because my feelings of dislike and a critical spirit would have been the filler for me and there would have been no room for the Holy Spirit.

 

As hard as it was, I knew learning to love her was my only option as a daughter of the Most High.  We can't allow ourselves to say we love people and say we love God but dislike the ones who are hard to love.  God's word tells us over and over and over that love is the key and is the most important thing of all.  Without love there is nothing and we are nothing. We cannot say we love God and not love others, even those who are difficult to love.  Love is what compelled God to send His One and only Son to come and set the captives free, heal the blind and the sick and to eventually die on a cross while we were yet sinners.  If we are going to proclaim Christ and walk in His ways then we must love others, no matter how hard or how painful that may be at times.