It’s easy (most of the time) to love the people close to you. The hard part is loving the people you don’t even want to be around. But we are called to love like that. We don’t have to like everybody, but we should LOVE everybody. There is a difference between the two.

You don’t have to like everyone, meaning you don’t have to enjoy the presence of, agree with, or want to spend time with every person you meet. On the contrary, we are called to love everyone. We are called to show kindness, respect and charity to all of God’s people. We all form the one Body of Christ.

This means we must love our enemies: the person who gets under our skin, the person who disagrees with everything we say, the person who laughs at us and outs us in front of other people, the person who cuts us off in traffic, the person who steals and even the person who kills. We are called to love all of these people.

Who do you love? Do you only love the people who are easiest for you to love? Jesus showed us how to love the crippled, the abandoned, the outnumbered, the outcast. Jesus was mocked, spat at, ridiculed and crucified because of His deep love for all of humanity — because of His deep love for each one of us.

Do you love like Jesus does?