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Matthew's Recipe for Loving the Unlovable
🎧 Today's devotional — listen while you start your day
Hey there. Let’s get grounded together. My 'smart' speaker decided yesterday that 'play quiet jazz' actually meant 'blast heavy metal at full volume.' I spent a full minute yelling at an inanimate object, you know? And it's funny until you realize how quickly we look for something to blame, the tech, the algorithm, the universe, for the frustration that's really ours. We're always looking for a convincing candidate for our anger, other than ourselves. Sometimes, the call isn't coming from outside the house.
Thou shalt love thy neighbour. — Matthew 5:43The Briefing
This verse has been quietly holding people together for thousands of years. We hear it, and we nod. Love your neighbor. Simple. But Matthew is recording something that isn't simple at all, it's the most demanding spiritual recipe ever written. He means love everyone. The neighbor with the sprawling mansion when you're struggling to make rent. The neighbor in rags when you're comfortable. Here's the thing, God isn't asking you to muster up warm feelings. He's asking for a heroic kind of love, a love that keeps showing up even when it gets ingratitude and contempt in return. A love that isn't transactional. And here’s what gets me: God accepts the love you give, even if the person you give it to throws it on the ground. Think about that. Your act of love for that difficult person, the one who drains you, the one who never says thank you, is seen and received by Him. He is the audience. The goal isn't to please them, you know? The goal is to please the Master. This whole command is a reduction of the gospel itself, to love the ungrateful is to follow in the footsteps of a Christ who loved us when we were already His ungrateful neighbors. This changes the chemistry of our relationships. We stop needing a return on our investment. We can love the person with the perfect lawn without envy, and the person struggling without scorn, because God made us all from the same stuff. Our circumstances are different, but our humanity is the same. This kind of love is a slow fermentation. It works quietly. It changes us first, long before it ever changes them.
⚔️ Your Mission
So here is the mission... Think of the one person whose name on your phone screen makes your stomach tighten just a little. The one you feel you give and give to, with little return. Today, the mission is a gratitude pivot. Maybe that looks like sending a text with zero expectation of a reply, just offering a word of encouragement. It's not about changing them; it's about recalibrating your own heart toward the Master's recipe for love."Jesus, we confess we keep a running tab with people. We're white-knuckling our right to be appreciated, to be thanked, to be loved in return. Today, we want to set that down. Help us love the person in front of us not because of what they offer us, but because You already offered everything for us. Let that truth be the only reason we need. In Jesus' name... Amen."
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Read the records of the community below.TimothyJune 13, 2026That thought regarding the particular challenge of loving those who seem to resist affection, it held me quite still for a moment. One recalls the profound demands of the Sermon on the Mount, of course, but also the aspiration within the Prayer Book’s collect for purity: ‘cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love thee’. The bells of St. Mary’s were chiming for Evensong as I read this, a quiet contemplation.
Yours faithfully, Timothy
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Scroll to keep listeningWhat Matthew 5:43 actually says
Thou shalt love thy neighbour.Matthew 5:43
Jesus gives this straightforward command about how to treat people. It’s part of a larger teaching, but this piece stands on its own: love your neighbor.
The word "neighbor" here is meant to be read as broadly as possible. It includes the person who is much wealthier than you and the person who is much poorer. It covers people you might be tempted to envy or look down on. It even includes the neighbor who is ungrateful or responds to your kindness with contempt.
The King James phrasing, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour," simply means, "You are to love your neighbor."
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Whoa. This is so good. Just needed this today. This whole idea of Matthew’s ‘recipe’ for loving the unlovable… it’s just such a challenging call, right? Like, really sitting with what that actually *lookslike when it’s not just a nice thought, but a deep, uncomfortable practice. I’ve been wrestling with some stuff this week, trying to find that genuine space for grace when it feels so hard to extend, especially during prep for Sunday’s worship set. There’s this one melody that’s just been stuck in my head, a deep, yearning kind of sound that wants to break open something true. What a powerful ‘recipe’ to lean into. The Spirit just keeps nudging, you know? 🌿 …yeah, still sitting with this.