We are supposed to love one another. How do you love people you don’t necessarily like? Is this possible?
Yes, my dear friend, it is quite possible, but the ability to love in a godly manner does not come from ourselves, in other words from the flesh; but rather it is from God Himself who “worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:13). We have the capacity to love only because of the new life in Christ Jesus which Christians receive through the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts when we believe, and by the washing of the Word (John 3:3-5; Titus 3:5). Remember that the love we are talking about here is an “agape” love, a God-like love, that originates not in our flesh, but rather in the new nature imparted by the Spirit of God. This is an altruistic, selfless love for others, and we are called to love especially those who are in the family of God (1 John 5:1-2). 1 Corinthians 13 gives us a beautiful description of such love (note especially verses 4-7 of this chapter). This love responds to and reflects the love of God through Jesus for us, because God loved us so much that He sent His only begotten Son into the world to be the propitiation for our sins (1 John 4:7-10). Since God has demonstrated such love for us, we should be willing to reflect God’s amazing love by demonstrating that same self-sacrificing love for others (1 John 4:11). But again, this does not happen through our best efforts in the flesh, but rather by the work of the Spirit with our new birth.
So, we see clearly in the Scriptures what this agape love is, and also that it is the will of God that we do love one another in this way. And we know that the capacity for this love comes from God through the Holy Spirit when we are born again. But, in response to your question as to how we can do this in our day to day lives in this fallen scene, I believe that it is a matter of humility and prayer that we can willingly and happily be obedient to the commandments of our Lord, even when faced with brothers and sisters in Christ who seem to us to be “difficult to love.” I believe that the difficulty arises because along with the Holy Spirit, we all still have the flesh which wars against our members (Romans 7:23). Perhaps we feel that another’s personality simply does not mesh well with our own, or perhaps our personal pride senses that another believer isn’t giving us the respect or credit, or the personal warmth that we feel we deserve; or, perhaps, we feel that another believer has wronged us in some way, and we feel bitter about that. There can certainly be a number of reasons why we may at times “not like” another person. At such times, I have found prayer to be most helpful and necessary. Prayer (where we talk to God) is a sign of our humble dependence upon the Lord, and when coupled with the reading of God’s Word (where God speaks to us), we are better able to see things God’s way, and this often leads to healing of such issues (see Hebrews 4:15,16; Ephesians 6:18). But I again want to stress that it is a commandment of our Lord that we love one another, and the willingness to do this comes from God and not from our flesh. Moreover, I believe that demonstrating this love is something that born again Christians will want to do because the Spirit of God dwells in us, and thus I believe that we will also find that we enjoy obeying God’s commandments, (see 1 John 5:1-4). In Ephesians 4:31-32 we read: “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”
Now, I do admit that we may sometimes find that the actions or even just the personality traits of another Christian, or the tone in which certain others respond to us, will not always be very appealing to our senses, but it is at such times that we must not allow the old nature to dominate our reactions. In 1 John 4:12-13 we read: “…If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit. “What I believe that this verse is telling us is that if we are truly born again, then God’s Spirit is within us, and we are therefore able to love one another through the power of the Spirit. And what is the fruit of the Spirit? We read in Galatians 5:22-25: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” (SF) (574.2)