When we say we like someone many times we refer to his or her character. For example, we will say, “I like her, she is nice.” We like people based on whether or not their actions are in line with our moral views. Liking someone depends on your morals and your interests, which I think are strongly related.
In addition, I think that liking someone is an emotion. We feel good when we are around certain people and don’t feel so good when we are around others. We feel good or bad depending on how they treat us, others around us, or maybe even how we think they represent Christ. For me, this is exactly the case. Liking someone is an emotion dependent on how they are acting in that moment in time. If they do not act poorly towards others or me next time I am around them, I like them. Since liking someone is an emotion and our emotions change; whether or not you like someone can change from moment to moment too.
Think of the people you like. Do they speak unkindly to you? Belittle you? Persecute you even? Or do they generally make you feel loved? (How you define what it means for someone to speak unkindly, belittle you, or persecute you depends on your morals.) I think that most of us will say that they generally make us feel good. Probably not all the time, but most of the time, thus we find them enjoyable. (Enjoyable is one of the definitions of like.)
So what does loving someone mean? I do not believe love is purely an emotion, but rather, largely an action. The bible’s description of love in I Corinthians does not list emotions, but actions. (While patient is not a verb but an adjective, it is clearly meant in these verses that we are to be these things. And to be is a verb.) So what I am saying? Simply that love does not depend on emotions, but acts despite of them. How we show our love for God is by serving others. Thus we love God through our actions, not our feelings. Sometimes I do not feel like I love or even like God, but how I act despite of my feelings shows whether or not I truly do love Him. The same is true for the people in our lives. You probably won’t like them all, all the time but that doesn’t matter, because that is just a feeling, which will probably pass. And if it doesn’t, you still must show love to them.
My argument is that love and like are two distinct things. You do not have to have one to have the other because I do not believe they are apart of a linear sequence, in which you must first like in order to love. Maybe this is true with romantic kind of love (which is based largely on emotions), but God is infinitely greater than this narrow view that many have of love. Now, whether or not we really should like or dislike someone for any particular reason is a different blog post altogether. I think most of the time we like someone or not based on selfish motivations, but for now all one needs to remember is that we are to love despite how we feel. If we continue to seek the Lord he will work on us and we will soon find that we like more people because we are not thinking as much of ourselves.