We owe other people more than their rights; we owe them love. To some
of them it is not hard to pay this debt. They are lovable and winsome.
They are thoroughly respectable. They are congenial spirits, giving us
in return quite as much as we can give them. It is natural to love
these and be very kindly and gentle to them. But we have no liberty of
selection in this broad duty of loving other people. We may not choose
whom we shall love if we claim to be Christians. The Master's teaching
is inexorable: "If ye love them that love you, what thank have ye? for
even sinners love those that love them. And if ye do good to them that
do good to you, what thank have ye? for even sinners do the same. And
if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? even
sinners lend to sinners, to receive again as much. But love your
enemies, and do them good, and lend, never despairing; and your reward
shall be great, and ye shall be sons of the Most High; for he is kind
toward the unthankful and evil."
The good Samaritan is our Lord's answer to the question, "Who is my
neighbor?" and the good Samaritan's neighbor was a bitter enemy, who,
in other circumstances, would have spurned him from his presence.
Other people may not be beautiful in their character, nor congenial in
their habits, manners, modes of life, or disposition; they may even be
unkind to us, unjust, unreasonable, in strict justice altogether
undeserving of our favor; yet if we persist in being called Christians
ourselves we owe them the love that thinketh no evil, that seeketh not
its own, that beareth all things, endureth all things, and never
faileth.
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