Some people are easier to love than others. However, Jesus didn’t leave room for any of us to screen out people we don’t like. An amazing picture of God’s grace is that He loves everyone. Jesus died for us while we were sinners; He died for everyone. The gift of salvation has to be received by faith, but it is available for all of us.
It is easy for me to enclose people I like in my circle of love and exclude people with whom I’m not comfortable. Believers have decided to resist that tendency. We represent a God who loves everyone and doesn’t ignore anyone. Our mission is to love everyone Jesus died to save. We want to enlarge the boundaries of our hearts to be inclusive of everyone.
William Barclay, in his commentary on Ephesians, describes a historic event that shows us what God wants from us. During the war in France, some soldiers with their sergeant brought the body of a dead comrade to a French cemetery to have him buried. The priest told them gently that he was bound to ask if their comrade had been a baptized adherent of the Roman Catholic Church. They said that they did not know.
The priest said that he was very sorry but in that case he could not permit burial in his churchyard. So, the soldiers sadly took their comrade and buried him just outside the fence.
The next day they came back to see that the grave was all right and to their astonishment could not find it. Search as they might they could find no trace of the freshly dug soil. As they were about to leave in bewilderment the priest came up. He told them that his heart had been troubled because of his refusal to allow their dead comrade to be buried in the churchyard; so, early in the morning, he had risen from his bed and with his own hands had moved the fence to include the body of the soldier who had died for France.
Wherever we have fenced out those God loves let’s move the fence. After all, as John 3:16 says, “God so loved the world….” Even if they don’t know Jesus as we do, maybe our love and kindness will move them toward Him. At least we’ll be showing them what He is like and how He feels about them no matter what shape they’re in.
