May 26 - Unlovable? Not to Jesus.

May 26 – Unlovable?  Not to Jesus.

When he was gone, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once. My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come. A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Simon Peter asked him, “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus replied, “Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later.” Peter asked, “Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.”

Then Jesus answered, “Will you really lay down your life for me? Very truly I tell you, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times! (John 13:31-38)

The beauty of Jesus’ forgiveness and patience is that it is boundless. We deny Him, we betray Him, we go our own way, we make huge pronouncements of how we are going to follow Him and then forget them within a few moments.  But, in all of that, Jesus understands and continues to love us.

This is a love that is difficult for us to comprehend.  If anyone did all of those things to us, we’d walk away from the relationship and never look back.  But, Jesus never walks away and He is always ready to hold us – even if we have been the one who walked away and attempted to destroy the relationship.

Jesus knew that Peter wasn’t going to be able to live up to his pronouncement of love, but that didn’t change how Jesus loved Peter.  This story serves to remind us that Jesus is willing to love us – even when we fail miserably. 

We may fail to love those who have wounded and hurt us, who can’t seem to follow through with their commitments, who say terrible things about us to others, who betray and deny their relationship with us - but Jesus never will. 

He will always love us – even when we are unlovable.