I was at a wedding ceremony recently, with a lot of excellently dressed people in attendance. The groom was known for excellence in most of the things that he did. This obviously had a great impact in the calibre of guests at the ceremony; flamboyance was not in short supply. Most of the people looked as if they just walked out of fashion magazines.
Out of the blues, came this little girl that could have passed for a street beggar because of the way she was dressed in the midst of the surrounding flamboyance. She had a tattered handkerchief on her head to serve as a scarf. She saw someone she recognised and had to wade through the crowd to greet him. One of the women in the crowd literarily shoved her away, preventing her from passing in front of her, apparently because she was not ‘clean enough’. In contrast, when she eventually got to the person she wanted to greet through another route, she received a warm hug for her troubles.
It’s so easy to judge the woman and say how terrible her act was, but would you really have reacted differently if you were in her shoes? That brings me to the subject of unconditional love. That is love that does not require you to meet any conditions before receiving it; Love that does not depend on how good someone looks or how good a person is dressed; Love that is NEVER biased. That’s the kind of love that made Christ die on the cross for us. Even while we were swimming in sin; His love for us was never in doubt.
Can you imagine how filthy we appear before God each time we slip into sin? Yet, He’s always there looking to welcome us into His waiting arms, like the father of the prodigal son. He never treats us the way we deserve because of His unconditional love towards us. I believe this is the kind of love God expects us to give out.
You may never be faced with the kind of scenario that I described above, but your resolve to love unconditionally will always be tested. It’s all in your hands to decide which way to swing your love pendulum. If it were impossible, Jesus would not have commanded it in Matthew 22:39 “…Love others as well as you love yourself.” I know you love yourself unconditionally. So…
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