Loving Those Who Oppose You

When I was a teenager many years ago, teenagers all across America danced to the words of a song entitled Wonderful World by the late Sam Cooke.  It goes like this:

            I don’t know much about history,             I don’t know much about biology.             Don’t know much about a science book,             Don’t know much about the French I took.             But, I do know that I love you,             And I know that if you love me, too,             What a wonderful world this would be.

Obviously, this song is referring to a romantic love – the kind of love our mind first thinks of when we think of love.  While romantic love is one of the, shall we say, best inventions of all times, let’s stretch our mind and heart beyond the scope of a romantic relationship into the world around us.

Let’s take a stroll into our world, 2013, and see what we find.  It goes without saying that we live in a politically charged and morally declining climate.  Because of this, we are going to be faced daily with people who oppose our views. 

The question is, “how can we begin acting in love toward those who oppose us?”

I was brought to answering this question recently as I read an exert from a newly released book, entitled ReFocus by Jim Daly, President of Focus on the Family.  Daley writes:

“Love starts with truly recognizing that those with different faiths, or opposing views are not our enemies.  They are fellow human begins, created in God’s image just like we are, and for that reason, they deserve respectful and dignified treatment.”

I totally agree with Daly.  His message lines up with James 3:9, which says:  “With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness.”  

I’m convinced we can’t do both:  praise God in one breath, and curse human beings in another breath.  But, I was still left with answering the question of “how can I begin acting in love toward those who oppose my views?”

For me personally, I came up with a couple of ways:

1. Be a friend to someone with a different social status, faith, and background
2. Treat all sin equally.  Don’t specialize in what we think is “the big one.”
3. Start locally.  I know that my voice cannot reach into the four corners of this earth, but I can start on a local level.
4. Trust God for the outcome; it is not up to me to change someone else.  But, it is up to me to act in love.

What about you?  Can you begin “Loving Those Who Oppose You?” 

As we each do our part, in the words from Sam Cooke’s song of the ‘50’s,

What a wonderful world this would be.