in spite of....

God is calling each of us to love one another... not with our own hearts... but instead with the heart of God... we cannot in our human frailty love someone in spite of what they have done to us... but through the heart of God we can...

we often get spiritual amnesia and we forget that God still loves us when we are unloveable... we forget sometimes the mean or spiteful things we have done or are still doing... and yet we want God to love us regardless of what we do... but are we willing to do this for someone else?

I don't think that "love in spite of" means forgetting what they have done or imagining that they didn't have ulterior motives... although I think that would be our first thought of how this type of love would be accomplished...

if we look at Jesus... He KNEW what Judas would do when He chose him... yet He chose him anyways... I think sometimes we are too hard on Judas... did Judas really have a choice? it seems to me that he fulfilled the purpose for his life... even though it was a bad purpose... but throughout the three years that they were all together... no one else suspected that Judas was any different than the rest of them... so that tells me that Jesus treated all of them exactly the same... He loved them all... He still saw who Judas was... yet acted toward him in love...

I think this is what is required of each one of us... that we love one another in spite of the things that we know about them.. that we remember that none of us are perfect and while we may not like something in someone... we too have our flaws... and God loves us ALL THE TIME... that is our calling... to love one another all the time...