I’ve discovered it’s much easier to talk about loving people than it is to keep loving them after they’ve misunderstood you. The real test of love isn’t how we treat the people who stay. It’s easy to love the people who believe in you, support you, and celebrate your successes. It’s whether our hearts stay open toward the people who don’t. Jesus knew exactly who would walk away from Him.
He knew Judas would hand Him over. He knew that after His hard teaching about eating His flesh and drinking His blood, a crowd of His own followers would turn back and leave. None of it caught Him off guard. And amazingly, knowing every departure in advance, He kept loving them fully, right up to the cross.
Few things in Scripture have confronted me the way this has.
I’ve lived through seasons where people I cared about drifted out of my life. It hurt, and much of it never made sense. But watching how Jesus loved people He knew wouldn’t stay, has deeply challenged me. It has reshaped how I want to lead and how I want to love.
So let’s talk plainly about what real love actually costs.
Love has to go first.
In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul says that without love, our biggest gifts are worthless. We might have deep insight, over the top generosity, and faith strong enough to move mountains — and still completely miss the heart of Christ.
“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.” — 1 Corinthians 13:1 (KJV)
Love isn't just one virtue among many. It's the foundation every other virtue is built upon. Without love, even our greatest strengths lose their purpose.
Jesus knew who would betray Him, who would deny Him, who would run. None of that changed how He loved them.
What kind of love remains steady regardless of how another person responds?
I think we’ve often mistaken love for just an emotion.
Emotions are a gift from God, but they were never meant to be our compass. They rise and fall with our circumstances. They react to what people say and do. One moment they draw us close, the next they tempt us to pull away. Love is different. Love isn’t the absence of emotion, but it isn’t governed by emotion either.
That doesn’t mean love always looks the same.
Sometimes love is gentle.
Sometimes love speaks the truth, even when the truth is difficult to hear.
Sometimes love establishes healthy boundaries.
Sometimes love quietly serves without expecting anything in return.
Love takes many forms, but it is always asking the same question:
What would love look like here?
“Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”-Luke 6:45
I think the same is true of every part of our lives. Pressure doesn’t create what’s inside us. It reveals it.
When we’re overlooked...
When we’re misunderstood...
When someone else receives the opportunity we hoped for...
When life doesn’t unfold the way we expected...
Those moments don’t suddenly make us impatient, resentful, or fearful. They simply uncover what has been quietly taking root in our hearts all along. That's actually good news. Whatever grace exposes, grace also transforms.
That’s why love can’t stay just a belief we hold. It has to become the person we’re turning into.
The longer I follow Jesus, the more convinced I become that spiritual maturity isn’t measured by how much we know.
But Jesus didn’t simply invite people to think differently.
He invited them to become different.
To become the kind of people whose first response is love.
Of course, that's much easier to say than it is to live. It's one thing to believe in love. It's another thing to love when you're interrupted, overlooked, misunderstood or when someone else's choices leave you carrying pain.
That's where love moves beyond an idea and begins to take root in our lives. James understood this when he wrote:
"Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance." (James 1:2-3)
James isn’t saying trials are enjoyable. He’s saying they have purpose.
Every difficult conversation, every delayed answer, every misunderstood motive, and every disappointment becomes an invitation to discover a greater measure of God’s grace. The very situations we would have avoided often become the places where His prepared grace meets our present need. Paul writes,
“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10)
That means we’re never left to navigate life’s difficulties on our own. Long before we arrived at the trial, God had already prepared the grace we would need to walk through it. Not simply to endure it. But to become more like Christ because of it.
It’s becoming increasingly clear to me that God is less interested in removing every difficult circumstance than He is in revealing His Son through the people He is transforming.
While the Father gently whispers,
Paul also reminds us that,
“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)
That’s important because it changes how we think about growth. We’re not trying to manufacture love through greater effort. We’re learning to live from the new life we’ve already been given in Christ. As we become more aware of who we truly are, love begins to flow more naturally and genuinely.
Perhaps that’s what spiritual maturity really looks like.
Becoming more like Jesus.
Maybe maturity isn’t measured by how many verses we’ve memorized...
How many sermons we’ve preached...
Or how many books we’ve read.
Maybe it’s measured by how quickly love becomes our first response.
Christ reshapes our hearts.
Jesus never promised that everyone would stay, but He did promise that if we remained in Him, His life would remain in us. Perhaps that’s what love has always been. Not clinging to the people who leave, but remaining so rooted in Christ that even when others walk away, our hearts remain open.
Because when love comes first...
People don’t simply see kindness.
Is love my instinctive response, or just the one I default to when life is easy?
Is there someone disappointment has hardened my heart toward?
What would change this week if I paused to ask, “What would love do here?” before reacting?
Where might God be inviting me to become more like Christ through a difficult relationship?