The ultimate way we love our hard-to-love family and friends is thru forgiveness.
Like Peter, we all know that showing forgiveness is vital for a follower of Jesus (Matthew 18:21). Perhaps, like Peter, we imagine there needs to be a limit to how persistently we forgive an individual. Yet Jesus told Peter that our tolerance of others needs to be unlimited.
Jesus explained that because God has forgiven us, we must also forgive others. If we all know God’s forgiveness, we all know that we’re to forgive those that offend us. “Love,” the Bible says, “keeps no record of wrongs” (1 Corinthians 13:5).
Let us pray as Jesus taught us: “Forgive us our sins as now we have forgiven those that have sinned against us” (Matthew 6:12).
Heavenly Father,
5. Pray to specific love along with your behavior
1 Corinthians lists the manifestations of affection: “Love is patient and sort. Love will not be jealous, boastful, proud or rude. It doesn’t demand its own path. He will not be irritable and doesn’t record that he has been hurt. He doesn’t rejoice at injustice, but rejoices when truth prevails. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is at all times hopeful and can endure all circumstances.1 Corinthians 13:4-7).
Love like this seems unattainable. But since these attributes appear to coincide with the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22pray that the Holy Spirit will pour love into your hearts.
As you say this prayer, replace it with the name of the individual that involves mind.
Heavenly Father,
As we try to satisfy God’s commandment to like our friends and members of the family who’re difficult to like, keep in mind that we don’t do it alone, but through the facility of the Holy Spirit that has been given to us through the work of Jesus Christ.
Source
Gerald L. Borchert, John 12-21, volume. 25B, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2002), 100.
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