Complimentary Story
March 2026 John 13:34-35 (ESV), “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.”
Wouldn’t it be grand if God only asked us to love the lovelies…to love those who love us first, love us best, or love us back? It would certainly be easier than His call on us to love ‘one another.’ Within that vague category lies all manner of people…the broken, addicted, narcissistic, lonely, proud, greedy…along with some of the ‘lovelies,’ of course.
How can it be that God would ask us to love where it isn’t returned, or worse yet, where it might be rejected? This rhetorical question obviously finds its answer in the person of Christ. It is Jesus in the flesh that shows us the heart of God. It is Jesus’ love for others that allows Him to call us into such an audacity such as the unfair love of others. It is Jesus who first loved us…in our unloveliest of phases and stages. It is this same Jesus who tells us to do the same…love one another.
Even before Christ incarnate, God revealed His heart to love the unlovelies to us. In the book of Hosea, we see a man called to love…called to an audacious love of a prostitute, an unfaithful and unredeemed woman.
Hosea 3: 1 (ESV), “Then the Lord said to me, ‘Go again; show love to a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, just as the Lord loves the Israelites though they turn to other gods...’”
It is in this verse that the Lord tells Hosea who to love and how to love her. Hosea is called to love one who is not capable of returning the same love to him. And he is to do it just as the Lord loves — a love extended to the unfaithful heart by the most faithful of hearts.
Hosea 3:2 (ESV), “So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and nine bushels of barley.”
Hosea does not argue about the unfairness of God’s request. He does not try to barter with the Lord to get an easier assignment. He obeys. His obedience to love the woman is received as love to the Lord.
Hosea 3:3-4 (ESV), “I said to her, ‘You are to live with me many days. You must not be promiscuous or belong to any man, and I will act the same way toward you. For the Israelites must live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar, and without ephod or household idols.’”
The one loved is called to refrain from infidelity…hardly the same love that Hosea is called to show. Even though she refrains out of duty and not love, her obedience creates a space for God to move.
Hosea 3:5 (ESV), “Afterward, the people of Israel will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They will come with awe to the Lord and to His goodness in the last days.”
When we remove idols, we create space to see the brilliance of God’s goodness. The removal of that which is common and comforting to us, but is not the Lord, creates space for us to return to the Lord. It fosters our appetite for His goodness and glory.
God can tell us to love the unlovelies, the difficult people, the rejectors, the betrayers; because He has done it! The heart of God is to love the unlovely and unfaithful person while you wait for the restoration of their souls. This is how He waits for each of us! Our love for others makes a space for the brilliant love of the Lord to win them over.
1 John 4:19 (ESV), “We love because He first loved us.”
And because He first loved us, in our unloveliest of stages and phases, He has the right to ask us to extend that love we have so freely received to those around us…to all the ‘one anothers’ that may cross our path.
1 John 4:20-21 (ESV), “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.”
This new commandment is older than time itself because it represents what the heart of God has always been…to create a space, out of love, for people to be drawn to Him and His goodness, and so receive the restoration of their souls. What a marvelous thing that He would desire to use us in this lovely plan; even if it means that we may have to show love to an unlovely.
Praise God…it is His lovingkindness that draws us to repentance.
Chris McMahan
Email: Happy1970@icloud.com
