Love for Judas

By: Grace Metzger

“Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” And they were 

very sorrowful and began to say to Him one after another, “Is it I, Lord?”

Matthew 26:31-22 ESV

Recently, I heard a quote on TikTok about how Jesus loved everyone so much that when He said one of His disciples was going to be betraying Him, no one could tell who it was. He didn’t show any hatred or anger ever to Judas. He knew what Judas was going to do, He knew how Judas would betray Him. But He had such love for him despite all that.

I think back to myself, do I have a love like that for my enemies? A love that is so true and pure that it doesn’t hold grudges or have anger controlling it? I think if everyone answered honestly then not one person would say they have that love for their enemies. I can admit that that kind of love is hard to have. Especially nowadays, with people’s belief of cutting people off, putting themselves above others, or holding onto anger. It’s not common nowadays to have love like that.

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭13‬:‭13‬ ‭ESV‬‬

This isn’t just a small thing that we’re working towards but should be an incredibly important part of your journey with God. Loving others as God loves them is so incredibly important. Jesus knew the importance of love. In fact, He even tells us that after loving God with all your heart, that loving your neighbor is the most important commandment. But I believe that He knows that this is not something that comes easily to us, but it’s something that we have to work towards daily in order to attain. 

You might ask how do I even work towards that and that’s something I’ve been asking myself since I’ve saw that quote on TikTok. I wish I could say “here’s the one step you have to take in order to achieve this, have fun.” But it’s not like that, anything worth doing it’s not going to be easy. Instead, it takes a conscious effort every single day to love someone, to let go of the hurt they cause you, to give all your anger in pain to God, and choose to love them as God - and it’s up to you. I think back to how I’ve treated God in the past, I am shocked that He’s able to show me as much love as He has. If He can show me that much love after everything I’ve done to Him, then why can’t I do the same for others. I think our first step in this journey is instead of focusing on the hatred, anger, and pain, we need to focus on God. When I focus on the fact that God forgives me and God loves me, it reminds me that I am no better then anyone else. We are all the same. We’ve all sinned, we’ve all fallen short, and we are all imperfect. But we are also all the same in the fact that we are children of God. So instead of focusing on their faults, I’ve chosen to focus on that. I am choosing to love as Jesus loved Judas because they are children of God and who am I to treat God’s children poorly?

Discuss Question: What is something you learned this resurrection week?