I am a Christian. This means I have committed my life to following Jesus, to love like Jesus loves, and, for lack of a more attractive term, to obey Jesus. Jesus is crystal clear in his command that I love others the way he has loved me. It’s a good time to remember that the command to love is not a command to feel a certain way about someone. It is impossible for us to control all our feelings, and I don’t believe Jesus would give us impossible commands.   To love Charlie Kirk does not mean to ignore or rationalize the things about him I find objectionable or harmful. To love him is to honor the dignity of his humanity – to recognize that he and I are both creations of the same God. To love Charlie Kirk is to be for him – and this is tricky, I acknowledge. I do not mean it means to accept or go along with everything he says, or to hope he gets what he wants. No, to love him is to hope for his heart to be filled with love, for him to experience liberation from hatred, for him to know true joy.   This is a non-starter for a lot of people I love and respect. Because we are all caught up in the condition of believing love, liberation, and joy are only for people we think deserve it – that love, liberation, and joy are rewards for good behavior. But what if true love, liberation, and joy are the things that enable us to let go of hatred in the first place?