I mentioned in my last podcast that the best synonym I can think of for the word “love” is the word “helpfulness.” One reason I think that is on account of the Lord’s teaching in his Sermon On The Mount. He said this:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Matthew 5:43-48
Clearly, Jesus’s use of the word “love” in this context means something quite different than our common emotionally loaded use of it. One clue is his reference to the Father as our example. It is not as though the Father in his love for people maintains warm affections towards the evil and the good. Rather, the Father indiscriminately helps the evil and the good by giving them sunshine and sending rain on them both. That is to say, he helps them regardless of whether they respond to him or not.
And because he loves every person in the world, it means he never helps anyone less or more than anyone else in the interests of drawing them into a friendship with himself. For that matter, since by nature he is love — that is — helpfulness, he cannot help but help all created beings with everything that he is and all the time.
So, we are called to be like that — pure helpfulness every where we go and with everyone we know. It must never matter to us how others choose to treat us. Like our heavenly Father, let’s help them, keep helping them, and keep helping them again. God himself will guide us and strengthen us.

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