Here I’m speaking not of the call to salvation, the “greatest call” outlined in Romans 10:9, “That is you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” For that is the call of Christianity itself.
No, here I speak of the great call to all who have already accepted the call to Christianity. Jesus mentions it when asked to tell what was “The greatest commandment.” He mentioned it in verse 38 of Matthew 22. He first says in verse 37, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and the greatest commandment. The second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments.”
How we might ask, can we stumble so badly on the very thing that Jesus has said was the most important of all. Do we even recognize when we fall short of these exhortation. Oh, it’s easy to love the lovable, of course. But what about the cranky, the grouchy, the disobedient, the aggravating, the seemingly impossible to respect or the person who has fallen short of our expectations. We might easily overlook, or even excuse, our lack of love and grace by finding some seemingly rational reason to not find them deserving. Yet God has called Christians to a much higher standard.
Verses in Matthew and in Luke encourage us to not only love our enemies but to pray for them (Matthew 5:44) to do good to those who hate you and pray for those who mistreat you (Luke 6:27,28) and to do good to them and lend to them without expecting anything in return (Luke 6:35).
The Holy Spirit (and sometimes my wife reminds me) that God loved me not because I was lovable but because it was His nature to do so. And He says to each and every Christian, show the same to each and every person. “Love as I have loved you.”
Growth in grace stops the moment we get huffed. And we get huffed the moment someone falls short of our standards or even when we judge them to have fallen short of God’s standards. This is perhaps our greatest failing as Christians.
There is a time for judgment but not now and not by us. Let us heed God’s call and love the unlovable. God does.
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