By: Mike Kelly
Retired Pastor
We’re still working through a study of the Sermon on the Mount as found in Matthew chapters 5-7. As always, Christ’s directives are almost polar opposites of the world’s. Certainly, this one is. Love your enemies is not the world’s way of doing business.
Matt 5:43-45a “‘You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.”
Get that last phrase “that you may be children of your father in heaven”. Does that mean that God loves his enemies? And that loving our enemies is to be a family trait? After all, we are made in His image.
Think about it. Jesus came to save everyone. John 3:16 says that he loved the world…that he died for every soul ever born or that will ever be conceived from now until He returns in His glory.
Romans 5:10 says that God came to save us even while we were still his enemies and showed that love by dying for our sins.
Even this set of verses says that God does not differentiate his mercy. He shows love to all. 45b: “He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”
God blesses everyone. Why? Because we are all His children. Even those of us who are disobedient. Even those who deny Him. Even those who are actively persecuting His Church. He withholds his love from no one.
And what is his reasoning for loving everyone? Because it wouldn’t be right to love some of his children and not others. V46-47: “If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?
And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?” If we showed such favoritism as to love only those of our own, we’d be the exact opposite of the One we claim to follow. That’s a scary kind of thought.
Anyone can love their own, but it takes God in us to love those who disagree with us or persecute us or even hate us. The ability to choose to love those who show us no respect, who actively strive to harm us, who hate us and all we stand for is where our true love for God is manifested.
He loves them. So must we if we are true children of the Living God. That’s not easy nor is it something we can just “do”. It requires a transformative relationship with Christ where the Holy Spirit leads us.
It doesn’t come from us; it comes from Him through us to them. That’s an important point. We don’t have it in us to love like God loves but we have Him in us allowing us to share His love through us.
Verse 48 sums it up: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Surely more is expected from us because we are His children, more so, his image. Perfect here is not about our lives or the things we do.
We are not subjected to getting all A’s by this verse or never dropping a pass. Perfect love is to love all men regardless of how they treat us. it’s to pass along his love manifested through us to them.
What we are commanded to do is to draw near to God so that we can behave like him. So that our thoughts are his thoughts, our actions are what Christ would do in the exact same circumstance.
Not to fake our care and concern for our enemies, but to genuinely show our love for them in practical terms where possible and to pray for them when we can’t reach out to them.
Let’s be honest, loving our enemies is not so difficult if they live a long way from us and we do not have to interact with them. We don’t have to prove our love.
But, when they are our neighbor, or boss or even our family, loving those who hate us is so much more difficult. Yet, Christ demands that we do as our response to our relationship with Him.
Christmas was just here and for many that meant getting together with family…some of whom may dislike us intensely. Sitting down at the same dinner table may have been an incredibly difficult task.
It may well have required allowing God to transform our thinking about the other person until we could see them through His eyes.
When that occurred, we were hopefully able to absorb their barbs and attitude just like Christ did when He hung on that cross for us…and them.
May this new year see you being the hands and feet and especially the arms of Jesus to those who have lost faith in Him and in us.
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Mike Kelly is the founding pastor of Bryan’s Grace Community Church (retired) and Board Chairman of Bryan’s Sanctuary Homeless Shelter and Williams County’s Compassion (free) Medical Clinic.