Life starts with Love, and so does forgiveness

Vincent Price

“But to you who are listening, I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” Luke 6:27-28

The dictionary defines love as "An intense feeling of deep affection.” It’s one of the shortest words in it. The four-letter composition would imply simplicity; however, it’s anything but. For some of us, it’s everything we’ve ever wanted, while for others, it’s something they would one day like to know. Love is easily defined, yet rarely do we truly understand it. But we’re now at a time when we should maybe seek to understand it.

Throughout my life, I have always been in love with the idea of love, or at least my version of it. I never really understood it, though. I didn’t have the easiest childhood, so I often craved love. However, now that I understand what I was yearning for, I realize that I have always possessed an overabundance of it, and I didn’t know. It was love that had always kept me safe. Love saw me through when it felt like all hope was lost. And it is love that allows me to write to you now. This love is, has been, and always will be God’s love for me and us all.

God graciously gives us His love daily, yet we hoard our own. Isn’t that sad? God’s love is free—IT’S FREE! However, we make our love conditional, putting it behind a paywall of expectations. We selfishly reserve it only for those we deem worthy and who meet our criteria and standards, usually those in our families and circles. In loving this way, we limit our hearts.

Even the most dedicated Christian can sometimes struggle with this, and that’s okay. God does not expect us to be perfect, but we must remember that we are perfectly created. God knows us better than we know ourselves. Through His love, He left us the perfect instruction manual to follow—we only need to open it. And as if that wasn’t enough, so that we may be with Him always, He even sent the perfect example for us to follow: Jesus Christ.

Jesus is why I’ve completely changed my view of love and its meaning. Despite being actively crucified, Jesus didn’t use his last breaths to curse his tormentors. Instead, he used them for love. He asked that God forgive them. FORGIVE THEM? Can you imagine that? How deeply must He love us all to even think about the tormentors as they inflicted upon him a brutality that we will never know?

When I think about withholding forgiveness, I think about Jesus's strength. He sacrificed Himself for everyone, including His executioners. In the most trying times, it wasn’t hatred that was on Jesus’ mind; it was love—an unconditional love wrapped in forgiveness with no strings attached. Before a love like that, our grudges are nothing.

Being a Christian is tough, and honestly, it will always be challenging. Christianity has never been easy. It has always been wrapped in difficulty and trying times. Forgiveness is no different but make no mistake—like Christianity, it has never been mired in weakness. Quite the opposite. It’s strength on the grandest of scales.

I want us all to love as Jesus loved. I want us all to be able to forgive like He forgave. I want us all to be forgiven like His tormentors. I want us all to treat those we view as enemies well and for them to know that we love them as Jesus did. I want us all to free them from our anger and for them to free us from theirs. I want us all to make forgiveness and love unconditional, simple, and free.

I don’t want to stand before the same Jesus who was on that cross and explain to Him why I hate my enemies or why I refuse to forgive. Instead, I want to stand before Him, wrapped in a blanket of His love, sharing it with a person I’ve forgiven while we both look up at Him and tell Him thank you. If Jesus can forgive after all of that, then surely, we can forgive the things that are comparatively nothing.

Let’s love our enemies and treat them well. Let’s bless them instead of cursing them. Let’s pray for them instead of hating them. Let’s do these things not because we must but because we get to. As followers of Christ, we get to walk in His footsteps and follow His example. And lastly, let’s forgive them like we’ve been forgiven.