Loving Like Jesus

Loving like Jesus is not something that happens automatically. It is not something that’s easy or natural. It is learned through the trials of life.

Often I say, “I want to be like Jesus,” or “I want to love like Jesus.” Part of me believes it can happen easily. God can wave a magic wand of grace over my life, and suddenly I’ll be like Jesus. Reality hit the other day when I remembered how Jesus is described in the Bible: He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering” (Isaiah 53:3). If I truly want to love like Jesus, I must be willing to be despised and rejected, to be subjected to sorrow and suffering. This is training ground for loving like Jesus. each time I respond with love when someone is unloving toward me, I take one step closer to loving like Jesus.
Recently I did something I believed was loving toward a person in trouble. Another person looking on decided what I had done was evil and unloving, and she told me so. How dare she tell me I was evil and unloving! I told her about some of her faults and I ridiculed her for her lack of expertise as a judge of my actions.
How did I respond to her verdict of “you are unloving?” By being unloving. How did I respond to her determination that what I~ and I believe God~called good, she called evil? With evil.
I see how far I have to go to love like Jesus. Repeatedly He faced people who told Him the good He did was evil. He never responded in any other way but with love. Sometimes He spoke a truth in return that hurt the listener, but it was always done in a loving way.
Everyday I face tests in love. If I respond in love as Jesus would, I pass. If I don’t, I fail.

Lord, today I ask that You give me enough grace to respond to rejection with love~just like You did.