Loved Those Who Hated Him
By T. E. Bowen
JESUS came into the world to save men and women. He came because He loved us. He loved us when He came. He loved those He knew hated Him. He prayed for those who spit in His face. He loved His own in the world to the end, even when one of these same denied with cursing that he knew Jesus at all, and another sold Him for thirty pieces of silver, and traitorously betrayed Him into the hands of a mob, while all the rest forsook Him and went home. He loved the men who drove the spikes into His hands and feet, and He breathed a prayer for them, because He knew that they knew not what they did, nor whose hands those were they were nailing to that tree. He loved the two thieves beside Him, and told one of them, because of his faith in Him as the Redeemer of the world under these humiliating circumstances, that he should one day be with Him in Paradise. Where can we find such love as this displayed? It is through love, and love only, and love under all conditions, however trying, that souls are won to Him who loved as none other ever before loved. In the face of the same world hatred that hated Him who loved as none other ever loved, we are commanded by Him, “Love one another, even as I have loved you.” Do we?