November 18, 2024 -- Matthew 5:43-35 -- Loving your enemies. Seriously?!
/“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But 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.
Matthew 5:43-45 ESV
No way. Impossible you say. This is too hard. It is hard enough to love people who are like us how can we possibly love someone who is cruel, relentlessly mean or is trying to publicly humiliate us? Dear fellow Christian, begin with the fact that you once were hostile to God, enemies to Him in your mind, your heart and constantly proved this by your actions. What did God do? He proved Himself greater than your rebellion, hostility and venomous heart. He reconciled you to Himself through the work of Jesus Christ at the cross.
When you realize you were an enemy to God and in His great love and persistent patience He did not leave you in your vile hatred of Himself, but in Jesus overcame your hostility and your sin and your guilt, so that by the Spirit’s power you rise to new life and you can in Jesus overcome that human desire to return evil for evil. Ah, but now you are a new creation. God has taken hold of you. In love He calls you His beloved son and dearest daughter. As such, you have the greatest power in the universe to help you overcome evil with good.
As many of you will recognize, I am following the 90 days of the “Overcomers” material. Overcomers is a Bible-based 12-step recovery program. Today’s devotion tracks with Day 24, Loving my enemies. I often think Christians who fill the pews week after week would do well to have a hard look at themselves and put into practice the Biblical principles that are contained in this material. It is too easy to say we are Christians, but not to live out our Christian faith in a tangible, obvious and real way. Loving our enemies is a clear sign that a believer is submitting his life to the care of God has He guides him (Step 3).
Notice what today’s text adds. Not only are you to love your enemies, but you are also to pray for those who persecute you. Praying for someone is a clear sign that you are trusting God to work His mighty power in the life of that other person. Praying for someone is an act of love; it shows you are matching your helplessness to His All-Powerfulness. He can work in you that very thing you couldn’t accomplish on your own: loving your enemies.
Finally, the text notes “so that you may be sons of your Father in heaven”. First off, in Jesus’s day, sons inherited property, the eldest received a double portion of the inheritance. Second, as believers we are adopted by the Father through Jesus Christ, and that means we are co-inheritors with Him. What Jesus has received as the Perfect One, Who loved His enemies and prayed for them, that is the inheritance and blessedness to be given to all who walk in His ways. Finally, when we love in such a radical way, we prove ourselves by our actions to be the children of God. The expression of such holy living confirms to us and confirms to the people around us that it is true, by God’s power in us, we are completely new. The old, bitter, sinful self is done away with, and we are so confident in God’s love toward us and His power in us, we are able to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.
Father in heaven, thank You for the great privilege of calling You Father. As one adopted through the work of Jesus Christ, I freely confess I love to be called Your child, but I am struggling to see how I could possibly love the people who are mean, consistently ignorant, or worse, those who are persecuting me. By Your Spirit’s power, let the words of Jesus sink deep into my soul. Change my attitude and reform my behavior so that, in conformity with Jesus, through Whom I have this new life, I will like Him love my enemies and become a prayer warrior towards those who persecute me. I need Your help for this, now, and through-out the day. Amen.
https://youtu.be/__voVCEZo3w?si=wQQwS4VSqeCCJnZt “Teach Me Thy Way O Lord”
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