"What's Love Got To Do With It?"

There is a notion that unconditional love is a mental defence mechanism for tolerating bad behavior. This notion makes room for the practice to cover folks from loved ones to strangers. The idea is that we employ unconditional love by not letting someone's bad behavior cause us to react similarly. In other words we use our mind ("I will engage good behavior at this time, because my love for this person is not based on the condition that they are always well behaved.") to distance our heart ("I will not be influenced to act negatively if I shield myself momentarily from them and what they are doing."). The flaw in this is obvious: that's not love. The fact that it's not unconditional, either, is of lesser concern.
Love, no matter how well we spin it, isn't distancing (even "momentarily") our heart from someone. Bad behavior is all around us and we are influenced by it. People have differing degrees of sensitivity. People have differing opinions about behavior, influence, negativity, etc... Negative behavior however, like so much else, doesn't change the rule that influence doesn't automatically mean emulation. For instance; how much of the body of Christ is influenced by Christ Himself? All of it to one degree or another. How much of the body of Christ actually emulates Him? Regardless of degree, none are 100% successful. Influence doesn't have to = emulation.
Just as God's grace was sufficient for Paul's thorn in his side, God can give us the grace to be completely open hearted to someone acting unbecomingly. The decision (& after enough practice, the intuition) to not behave the same hateful way is not based on shielding yourself. This is the definition of "tough". Tough is not blocking a punch and delivering one. Tough is taking a punch and handling it. To whatever degree.
Unconditional love is about mourning with those that mourn and rejoicing with those rejoicing. Imagine the sapping of strength that entails. You've got to have stamina. You've got to be tough. You've got to be blessed with God's grace. In other words, there is a condition.
It is my opinion that the only way to truly practise unconditional love is through the Holy Spirit (the Holy Spirit is still the Holy Spirit, regardless of what religion you are). To be in a state where He can influence that successfully... 100% successfully... well, that's grace! That's the condition for unconditional love. The good news? I've yet to meet a person that hasn't performed this in some way or form. It's true. Anyone reading this right now, I've seen you do this, at least to some degree.
So, buy bonds & get your kids on centering prayer TODAY!
Damie...