this week.

This past week has honestly been one of the hardest I've gone through in a long time. It's amazing how fast things can go from bad to worse and how much it can hurt to be betrayed by someone that you thought was your friend. I've learned a lot this week. But, I think the one thing I've learned is that we must love like Jesus even when it's hard. It's so easy for us to forget that it's not always easy to love like Jesus. We forget that he we completely betrayed by some of his best friends. We forget that this betrayal cost him his life. It's easy to hate people when they do bad things. It's easy to want to talk about them and ruin their life and hurt them like they hurt you. But, we (as Christians) are called to a higher purpose. We are called to love. And not just love when it's easy- but love even when it's hard. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said that we must love strong enough not to hate. He says to turn the other cheek when we are hurt by someone. In a sermon titled "Loving Your Enemies", he says

Now there is a final reason I think that Jesus says, "Love your enemies." It is this: that love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals. Just keep being friendly to that person. Just keep loving them, and they can’t stand it too long. Oh, they react in many ways in the beginning. They react with guilt feelings, and sometimes they’ll hate you a little more at that transition period, but just keep loving them. And by the power of your love they will break down under the load. That’s love, you see. It is redemptive, and this is why Jesus says love. There’s something about love that builds up and is creative. There is something about hate that tears down and is destructive. So love your enemies.  

1 John 4:20 says, "If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen." We must love even when it's hard. We must love even when others don't love us back. Our love can overcome their hatred. Even when people are spreading lies about you and saying mean things- we are called to love them. Even when someone disappoints us, we are called to love them. Even when someone does the opposite of what we think Christ would want them to do and we think we are the one that is right, we are called to love them. We are called to love them in every circumstance. We are called to love them because Christ Jesus first loved us. We let God down all the time. We sin and we disappoint Jesus. We treat his sacrificial death on the cross as meaningless all the time- yet he still loves us. Since Christ loves us, we must love our enemies. Since Christ loves us even when it doesn't make sense, we are called to love others even when it doesn't make sense.