Loving Doesn't Mean We Always Have To Agree

This world has allowed confusion to be a part of our every day lives.Words and its meanings have been twisted, and this allowed communication and expression of emotions to be misleading, and eventually misunderstood.

Today, love has been tagged with different meanings and ways of expression, like love is sex, love is pleasing people no matter what it may cost and many more. Hate, at the same time, has been given so much words to vividly express the intensity of the emotion. Swear words becomes a norm, and more often beautified.  The immensity of words that comes along with these two feelings has lead us into a very confusing way to express not just our emotions, but as well as our opinions.

There are so many controversial issues that we are so eager to express our opinions and emotions to, but because we let our emotions leads us first, what comes out of our mouths are not edifying. Rick Warren says,

“Our culture has accepted two huge lies. The first is that if you disagree with someone’s lifestyle, you must fear them or hate them. The second is that to love someone means you agree with everything they believe or do. Both are nonsense. You don’t have to compromise convictions to be compassionate or “loving,”.”

Loving doesn’t mean we always have to agree with people. Disagreeing doesn’t mean we have to hate the persons stating their opinion. And the question we frequently ask is, how do we deal with this? Where is the in-between in this situation, most especially when we want to make a bold statement concerning our faith?

The Bible is very clear about love. In  Matthew 22:36, Jesus clearly states that loving our neighbors is the second greatest commandment. The Bible is also clear about sin, Romans 6:23 says that, “the wages of sin is death.” God cannot stand sin because He is a Holy God. At the same time, God is loving that He cannot let it go unpunished. 

“Hate the sin, love the sinner”

We have heard of this so many times, but have we really gotten the sense of this statement? Not because we love the sinner, we are to tolerate their bad behavior. Loving doesn’t require us to agree with their actions, but we are responsible to speak the truth in love to them, because love rejoices with the truth. Loving people is speaking life to them instead of condemning them. They may be sinning but they do not deserve our harsh remarks that can scar their soul forever.

If we hate the sin and we disagree with their opinions, this does not entitle us to hate on people. Disagreeing shouldn’t be synonymous with hating, for we can always disagree without hating. Hate is a strong emotion that can cause strife and anger towards others. Disagreeing with people can be summed up to, “I disagree with you and your opinions, but I respect you.”

“Love covers up all wrongs.” 

Loving people does not need to compromise the right thing for it to be fully expressed. Loving people can also be expressed in proper disagreement–with respect. Loving does not mean that sin should be overlooked for compassion to be expressed, rather, sin should be addressed to show compassion.  Love is unconditional, so rather than bashing people for their wrong behavior, speak the truth in love to them. Disagreement should not lead to hatred, but it should  lead to fruitful discussions of breaking wrong mindsets and respecting everyone’s opinions. Love is not always sweet and cute, it is also painful and true.

Jesus has called us to love others but we can only do that if we have experienced how truly it is to be loved by God.  By His overflowing grace, we are able to love just as how He loves us.