Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a love of the brothers without hypocrisy, fervently love one another from the heart, for you have been born again not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, that is, through the living and enduring word of God. 1 Peter 1:22-23 LSB
God could have created us as robots that praised and worshipped Him. He could have created us to be kind and compassionate and loving and forgiving towards others. But He didn’t. He chose to give us choices in life. We can choose to forgive those who have hurt us just He forgives us of our sins (Matthew 6:14-15).
Love is also a choice. We can choose to love or not to love. Now, this is a very important choice, because God calls us to love. We are called to love Him with all our heart, all our soul and all our mind. We are called to love each other as much as we love ourselves (Matthew 22:37-39).
In 1 Peter 1, Peter is explaining the hope they have in a living Christ. We have a choice to surrender our lives to God. He doesn’t force us to do this. If we choose to surrender our lives to Christ, we are called to live differently than those who have chosen not to surrender their lives to Christ. This isn’t always easy because those who refuse to surrender to Christ aren’t always so easy to love.
In this Scripture passage Peter is talking about our call to Holy Living. This is our call to not look like the rest of the world. This is where we are called to be disciples of Christ. We are called to live holy lives. We are called to be set apart. We are called to be different.
In our Scripture passage today, Peter is speaking specifically of our call to love each other without hypocrisy. It’s easy for us to say we can’t love someone because of what they have done or how they have acted toward us or someone else. But, as Christians, we are called to clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience (Colossians 3:12).
When we withhold forgiveness or love from someone else and ask God to forgive us our sins, we are being hypocritical. We have all sinned and come short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). Just because what this person has done really bothers you doesn’t mean their sin is any worse than yours. There is no category or ranking of our sins. Sin is sin.
Sometimes I write these words to myself and hope they will help someone else. In the past few weeks, I have had to practice what I am preaching. I have people in my life that do their best to be unlovable. There are people in which I have no trust whatsoever. But as my former pastor once said, “You have to love them, you don’t have to trust them.”
We are called to love others, period. There is no disclaimer or clause saying you don’t have to love those who do you wrong. As a matter of fact, Jesus told said in Matthew 5:44, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
Paul told us in Romans 12:21 that we must not be conquered by evil, but we must conquer evil with good.
To surrender our lives to Christ is a choice we must make. When we do this, forgiving and loving should come naturally but I can tell you from personal experience it can be really hard sometimes. These, however, are the things God calls us to do. He will handle the vengeance and the judgment (Romans 12:19). We are to love, forgive and pray for those who are lost.
I was once lost and now I am found. It’s now my job to pray for those who are lost like I once was. And even though, sometimes it is really hard, I must choose to love. I pray you will do the same.
Have a great day!