Love Who?

Good Morning!

Matthew 5:43-48 (English Standard Version)
Love Your Enemies

43 "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 44But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

God is good to us. You might wonder why this Good Morning begins with this passage and the statement that God is good to us. Last night in our Bible study on Psalms 28, we heard David calling on God to whack his enemies – and the question was posed “where does love your enemies come into play here”. The question is valid – because we do see many references asking for God’s vengeance to come upon those who harm us. It is completely human to desire God strike back on our behalf. BUT …

Hatred is a cancer that can destroy you. Hatred takes your focus from God and from goodness and puts it on the object of hate. Jesus understood the psyche of mankind. He understood the devastating effect hatred could cause in a life. And He wants to protect us from this emotion – to give us an out.

But why tell us to love our enemies? Why not just ignore our enemies? Why pray for our enemies? Well, I see a couple of possibilities:

(1) Loving your enemies requires you to change your viewpoint. I can tell you that loving someone who had wronged me is not easy – in fact, within my own power, it is impossible. I have to call upon God to help me deal with the emotions that led to my counting someone as an enemy. In short, God and me have to have a little talk – God doing the talking, me doing the listening. These “conversations” can take some time – because I have to deal with other emotions: anger, bitterness, the desire for vengeance, and the like. But God slowly opens the door to my understanding – and helps me to see where love is possible.
(2) Praying for a person helps you to begin to value them again. All of us make mistakes in life. Some of those mistakes are grievous – causing much harm, sometimes intentionally – and sometimes unintentionally. Those who have become our enemies may have in the past been our friends – and we have permitted the unkind act or comment to impact that relationship. And we are bearing the burden of these hurt feelings. Praying for the person helps us to release the hurt feelings (can we call that forgiveness?) and to see them from a more gentle perspective.

God doesn’t want us to be eaten up with hatred. He wants us to experience the good feeling of loving one another. That is why I say God is good to us.

So, can we call on God to take vengeance on our enemies? Yes! But only if you have some … try loving them and praying for them first.

Have a blessed weekend. Happy birthday to Miss N on Sunday.

Agape’



Mr. Jim