How Do You Love Someone You Find Hard to Love? What Freedom in Christ Really Asks

This week I got tested on something I thought I had already handled. There is someone in my life I find hard to love right now. Not because they have done anything dramatic. Their comments and their energy just do not sit right with me, and my first instinct was to pull back. Distance myself. Remove them from my circle.

I put on a good face. I acted like it was fine. But in my heart I was struggling, and that night I prayed and asked God to remove whatever was standing between me and loving that person the way He asks me to. That prayer came from a devotional reading through The Bible Recap, and it followed me around for the rest of the day.

That same week I read Galatians 5:13. "You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh, rather serve one another humbly in love." I have read the Bible multiple times and I do not remember this verse ever standing out to me before. That surprised me, because it feels like something we should be taught the moment we come to faith and reminded of constantly.

The translation I read explains indulging the flesh as giving into our sinful nature, the fear, the pride, the insecurity, and the need for approval that drives us before we know Jesus. Once we accept Him, we are free from that. We do not have to earn our worth or prove ourselves to God. We are already accepted, loved, and secure.

Here is what got me. Freedom was never meant to be about us. It was given so we could serve other people, not so we could protect our own comfort. Jesus had every right to skip that towel and basin the night He washed His disciples' feet. He is the Son of God. Instead He knelt down and served the people He loved, including the one who was about to betray Him. If He can do that, loving someone whose comments annoy me should not be this hard.

I also learned something about the word sin that changed how I see it. The original Greek word behind sin means to miss the mark. It comes from archery, from an arrow that did not hit the center of the target. In that sport, close does not count. You either hit the mark or you missed it. Every time I choose selfishness over humility, or hold a grudge instead of extending grace, I am missing the mark God set for me. Freedom asks more of me than comfort does, and that is the whole point.

So what do I do with someone I find hard to love? I am learning the answer is not to avoid them and call it wisdom. It is to pray for them, refuse to gossip or complain about them, and love them even from a distance if that is what the season requires. Grudges and bitterness do not hurt the other person nearly as much as they hurt the one carrying them. I know that. I am still working on living like I know it.

Freedom in Christ is not permission to do whatever protects me. It is permission to stop performing, stop proving, and start serving, even the people who make that hard. That is the freedom Galatians 5:13 is describing, and it is the freedom I am asking God to help me actually use.

Peace, Love and Joy always. Infinite Faith and Favor | InfiniteFaithandFavor.com