As a pastor, people love to ask me questions that they are dealing with.
Just this morning a lady phoned and asked a really good question.
“Can I pray and ask God to give me the ability to unconditionally love people?” My first thought was yes, of course, obviously. Before I said a prayer I warned the lady that before you ask God for something, you need to have a bit of godly understanding.
Jesus had unconditional love. He loved everybody, thieves, liars, murderers, even atheists and agnostics. If we want to have that level of love, we need to look deep into Jesus’ life and learn from him.
Jesus loved the sinner, but he didn’t condone the sins. He was willing to address the issues of his day, he called a spade a spade as we say.
His love was tested to the limit, his betrayal, denial, a rigged trial and a painful death. Being God’s son he could have opted out at any time, but he completed the course. If you want to witness the most powerful evidence of unconditional love, you must read, reread and read again a piece in the Bible. Luke 23:34, “Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing”.
The truth is, in my brief 58 years on this planet, I have never seen true, unconditional love. In fact, I don’t think a person can really love unconditionally. So my prayer is simply this, “Jesus, fill me with your love”.
