“I am giving you a new commandment, that you love one another; just as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all people will know that you are My disciples: if you have love for one another.” – John 13:34-35
“But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” – Matthew 5:44
“In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.” – 1 Thessalonians 5:18 (NASB)

We don’t have to read the scriptures very long before we start getting the sense that we are supposed to be people of love. Love one another; love our friends; love our spouses; love our children; love our neighbors; and love our churches. Jesus even takes it a painful step further and tells us to love our enemies. Why, Jesus? Couldn’t you have just left that part out? Let’s be honest, there are just some people who are difficult to love. Who are the people in your life right now you are struggling to love? And why? For me, the people I find the hardest to love are those who have hurt me emotionally.

Not so long ago, someone whom I genuinely loved, someone I talked with every day and spent time with regularly, decided to end our friendship. Threw it away like a piece of trash – as if there had been no meaning or value to it. As it appeared to me, this person successfully put-up walls designed to forget me, ignore me, and even avoid me. However, I couldn’t respond the same way. I was crushed by the whole exchange and struggled to wrap my mind around what had happened.

Perhaps it would have been the easy thing to build up my own walls – walls of emotional defense and protection. I had been hurt by this person and had lost trust in them. It would be an easy choice to shut off my emotions and decide I was not going to let anyone in. Likewise, it would have been an easy choice to allow anger to fester and grow. Not only had I been rejected, but I was now being treated horribly. There have been meny times I could have thought, “How could they be so mean and careless!” However, love teaches us that neither of those responses are healthy and neither one of those responses would allow me to be obedient to God’s commandment to love, to love as He loved us and continues to love us.  But how could I love this person when it hurt to love?

Here is a fact about love: love is not a feeling. Love is choice, followed by action. Feelings of warmth and affection may or may not be involved.

What would my feelings tell me?  They would probably be telling me to forget this person who abandoned our friendship, that this person isn’t worth my time, prayers, or love. Feelings of disgust over how this person treated me would probably surface, along with feelings of anger over the rejection I experienced. My feelings would get lost in sadness over what I lost.

Notice with me, all those feelings are negative in nature. Unfortunately, one of the resulting effects from our severed union with God at the Fall in the Garden of Eden was that our emotional state became darkened. Our hearts, which God created to be focused on love and on loving Him, became focused on our own self-interests. Rather than experiencing the abundance of joy in being in the presence of God, Adam and Eve’s first emotion after the Fall was dreaded fear, followed by shame. You don’t have to look much further in the human story to see the rise of other dominant negative emotions. Jealousy, bitterness, anger, pride, loneliness, rejection, unlove, and the list goes on.

Feelings are not facts. But feelings do give us an important indicator about where our heart’s focus is.

Let me dive into two aspects of love that are not often talked about in connection to love. The first is joy; and the second is gratitude.

I find it incredibly sad how easy it is to forget what God has done for us in Jesus. Not only did Jesus save us from our sin, but He walked out of the grave, so that we could also walk out of the grave. Jesus came to give us life! I fail to love Jesus when I fail to remember the life He has given me. Let’s face it, life is hard. There is no promise that life will ever be daisies and Kool-Aid. When I remember who I was and see who I am now, I realize Jesus has done a redemptive work in me. Joy should be my only response! The psalmist said it best, “Return to me the joy of Your salvation!” – Psalm 51:12

When we constantly live in the joy of the Lord’s salvation for our lives, that joy seeps into other areas of our life. I believe it is this joy that lets us genuinely love others. How? Gratitude. Thankfulness is intimately connected to joy. You cannot have one without the other. If you are struggling to find joy, it is a good bet that you are battling thankfulness.  

As I was praying over my heartbreak at the loss of this friendship, the Lord slowly began to speak to me about joy and gratitude.

He asked me, “Are you grateful for the season of friendship you had with this person?” I answered, “Yes.” He replied, “Then, be joyful about the season of friendship you had and cherish it.”  

He asked me another question, “Are you grateful for this person?” “Yes, I am thankful for this person.” He answered, “Then, be joyful about this person.”  

Finally, the Lord asked me, “Are you grateful for what I am doing in this person and in their life?” “Yes, Lord, I am thankful.” He said, “Then be joyful about what I am doing in this person, even if what I am doing in them does not involve you.”  

Suddenly, my perspective changed. The focus shifted to what God is and what He continues to do –Love. He is loving that person. Likewise, He had given me an opportunity, for a season, to love that person, too. He is still giving me an opportunity to love that person through my joy and thankfulness for them.

When our hearts hurt, we are in danger of our focus becoming inwardly drawn. The feelings of loss, rejection, pain, sadness, and betrayal dominate. That isn’t love. Love demands us to change our perspective, to look through the lens of gratitude and joy. While gratitude and joy do not remove the negative feelings, they do take enough of the sting out to give us the courage to walk in obedience through our emotions and find healing. God says in Psalm 50:23, “giving thanks is a sacrifice that truly honors me.” Thankfulness come from a place of surrender and it is an act of true worship. To be thankful about something that has hurt us, is to sacrifice it before the Lord in surrender.

Loving those who have hurt us may seem like an impossible task. For some, the hurt and betrayal run so deep, the idea of loving that person again is worse than death. Yet, our loving and good God calls us to love those who have hurt us (consider these our enemies), and to pray for them. Often, we will have to wrestle with forgiveness, which is another aspect of love, in order to reach a place of thankfulness. I understand this can be a hard thing to do. Something will change as you do this. A beautiful blessing will grow in your heart as you step out in obedience and pray over those who have hurt you, when you obediently sing the joy of the Lord’s salvation over those who hurt you, and when you say, “Lord, thank You for this person and thank You for what You are doing in them.” You will be filled with joy and love will rise up in your heart.

Why should you love when it hurts to love? Because God has called His children to be ministers of reconciliation. Reconciliation is not something God takes lightly. It is the primary purpose of our lives.

In 2 Corinthians 5:17-19, we read: “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, this person is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their wrongdoings against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation” (NASB).

This is why loving our neighbor and our enemy are commandments. What a divine privilege it is partner with God to love – to reconcile. So let the joy of the Lord’s salvation seep out into every aspect of our lives, that we may live in thankfulness in every circumstance and love even when it hurts.