Have you ever experienced a person so unlovable that it’s as if they are your cross to bear? I have. That person can be so utterly contrary that they push me to my limits. At those times, I want to stop and remember my past life. What I recall is that I was also someone’s cross to bear. Who’s cross? His name was Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

ESV Galatians 2:20

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

We were born dead in trespasses and sins, without God and without hope. We were either good or bad, but we were sinners, nonetheless. Still, millennia before our birth, Jesus Christ bore our sins and sicknesses voluntarily.

Ephesians 2:2-6

2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:

3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.

4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,

5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)

6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:

Love can change the unlovable, even as it changes us. One man profoundly changed by love was Starr Daily. A hardened criminal who was convinced that hate was the most potent force in the world, he was in solitary confinement in Sing Sing when he saw a vision of Jesus Christ. Here is some of what he wrote about his experience in his book Love Can Open Prison Doors.

There, in a moment’s time, the folly of crime and the stupidity of hatred appeared clear cut in my consciousness, and I got an authentic glimpse of the greatest power in all the world, the power of love, which, when lived with any measure of proficiency, could see you through any emergency, dissolve your toughest problems, cause you to live serenely, triumphantly, and successfully at any time and in any place; that with love on your side as a philosophy of life every obstacle and opposition could be discerned in its true light, as an opportunity to call forth your power.

Titus 3:4-5

4 But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared,

5 Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;