Everybody, Always: Becoming Love in a World Full of Setbacks and Difficult People

by Bob Goff

You see, they wanted to follow Jesus’ example; instead of telling people what Jesus meant, they just loved people the way He did.

love everybody, always.

It’s hard to believe Jesus loves the van thieves and all the difficult people we’ve met just the same as you and me.

It’s given me a lot of comfort knowing we’re all rough drafts of the people we’re still becoming.

He said we would identify ourselves simply by how we loved people. It’s tempting to think there is more to it, but there’s not. Love isn’t something we fall into; love is someone we become.

God’s idea isn’t that we would just give and receive love but that we could actually become love. People who are becoming love see the beauty in others even when their off-putting behavior makes for a pretty weird mask.

What Jesus told His friends can be summed up in this way: He wants us to love everybody, always—and start with the people who creep us out.

Who are you trying to impress?

I avoid people God made in His own image just because I don’t understand them.

I think Jesus meant something different when He said “enemies.” He meant we should love the people we don’t understand. The ones we disagree with. The ones who are flat wrong about more than a couple of things. I have plenty of those people in my life, and my bet is you do too.

we’ll be remembered for our love. What I’ve learned following Jesus is we only really find our identities by engaging the people we’ve been avoiding. Jesus wrapped up this concept in three simple and seemingly impossible ideas for us to follow: love Him, love your neighbor, and love your enemies.

He convinces us with love,

No one expects us to love them flawlessly, but we can love them fearlessly, furiously, and unreasonably.

I bet He knew if our love isn’t going to work for the people who live close to us, then it’s probably not going to work for the rest of the world.

When joy is a habit, love is a reflex.

Selfless love has the power to transform even the darkest places into meadows.

Instead of telling people what they want, we need to tell them who they are.

You see, castles have moats to keep creepy people out, but kingdoms have bridges to let everyone in. Castles have dungeons for people who

God knows we’re easily confused and often wayward, and He pursues us with love anyway. I think He wants us to see things the way He does,

What part are you going to play in building the kind of kingdom Jesus said would outlast us all?

They should jingle when they walk. It’s this simple: I want people to meet you and me and feel like they’ve just met everyone in heaven.

said He wanted us to become new creations. His plan for our renewal is that we cut away all the things hanging us up and start all over again each day with Him.

They don’t take the bait and collect what has no value to God. They shun all the attention because they don’t need it anymore. They realize bright lights don’t need spotlights. Instead, they see every act of selfless love as a declaration of their faith. They’ve come to see love as its own reward simply because it pleases God.

We don’t need to call everything we do “ministry” anymore either. Just call it Tuesday. That’s what people who are becoming love do.

When the heavens themselves declare His glory, He doesn’t need our endorsement.

Playing it safe and waiting for assurances in our lives isn’t necessarily bad; it just isn’t faith anymore.

God doesn’t just give us Himself. Sometimes He gives us a few other people in our lives whose voices we can trust. Figure out what Jesus’ voice sounds like in your life. He’s standing at the end of the track calling your name. Run as fast as you can in His direction.

go talk to them instead of talking about them.

I don’t want what’s fair anymore. I want to be like Jesus. It’s a distinction worth making.

I think a better question to ask is, How is your life working for the people around you? Because if our lives aren’t working for the people around us, our lives aren’t working for us.

One thing I’ve learned from Jesus is extravagant love is never wasted. Yours won’t be either if you keep running home.

We can pretend to have all the game we want to up on stage, in the pulpit, on the field, at work, or in our faith communities. But it’s how we engage with the rental-car attendant or the grocery bagger or the bank teller or the person who puts on the car tires that lets everybody know where we really are with Jesus.

We all encounter difficulties. It’s what we do next that defines us.

Jesus doesn’t give any of us grades, and I’m grateful for that. He’s the only one who ever loved people perfectly.

Paul was one of the people who talked about Jesus. He explained grace in this way: He said neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither present nor future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation could ever separate us from the love of God.

there’s a big difference between liking Jesus and being like Him, and He said we would never be able to be like Him unless we loved our enemies.

Following Jesus means climbing, tripping, dusting ourselves off, and climbing some more. Faith isn’t a business trip walked on a sidewalk; it’s an adventure worked out on a steep and sometimes difficult trail.

The people who creep us out aren’t obstacles to having faith; they’re opportunities to understand it.