I was watching 30 Rock the other day and I became painfully aware of how hard it must be for Liz Lemon to love Jenna and Tracey. I totally love to hate them and their eccentric personalities. Now if you had to be their friend, brother, sister, cousin, colleague, boss, staffer, etc, etc (I’m sure you have an annoying, love to hate type of people in your life). Just think about it, there are certain people in our lives that we simple don’t want to love because they annoy us with whatever minutiae they consider important in their own miserable lives. Don’t lie to yourself by thinking Jonathan is the only one that can’t love people because of their “quirks.” You just have no problem because you don’t actually care about them enough to be annoyed and that is the same as not loving either. Because God knows you and I just want to take a bat and start swinging every time the unlovable are around us. But this is not a post for me to shame and guilt you. The real question is: How could we be Christ-like and actually love somebody unlovable? Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. (Philippians 2:3-4 ESV) The Apostle Paul writes to the church in Philippi, that the only way to truly love our enemies or our friends or simply our frenemies, because in our passive aggressive post modernist society, nobody really has enemies, is to be filled with humility. This isn’t any type of humility. This is the type of humility that becomes the object of hate in order to love. Paul is saying to love the unlovable, we must become like those we cannot love in being– that is in mindset, disposition and inclination. Now that’s humility! To see the world and feel the world as they do. To understand why they do what they do and help them do what they need to do. I mean if they are just jerks for the giggles and for no other reason but to be an annoyance, love them enough to beat them up. We do this because this is the type of humility God had to put on to love us. Jesus, who is God and was with the Father, had to lower himself to become a man born in a manger and eventually homeless so that we, who are unholy, unsaved and sinful could even have a chance at being loved by a just God. When you think about that, our little bit of humility for a frenemy is just a small thing. I want to say in light of becoming sin and sacrificed on the cross, as a scapegoat, we aren’t even being that humble when we love our passive aggressive frenemies. The reason I’m advocating this today? It’s simple, and not only because the Bible tells us to do it because it is the embodiment of true love; but rather, because in doing it, we begin to embody an understanding of purpose in our lives. We start seeing why God had caused our lives into being and why the things that happened to us shaped us the way it did and how we are supposed to leverage that for God’s purpose. So today and everyday, I want you to humble yourself by swallowing your annoyances and love somebody you love to hate in your life and witness the life changing power of God in their lives. Love thy frenemies.