Matthew 5:43-45

Matthew 5:43-45

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 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.

The instructions above, handed down by Jesus, largely contradict the wisdom of this world and the instinctual desires of man. Love my enemies…pray for those people that are against me…Really? For most of us, when we are at our very best, we tolerate those that we do not like. We tolerate the presence of our adversaries and their actions that get so deeply under our skin. But that is only when we are at our very best…and when we are not at our very best, all bets are off, the gloves come off and its “go time”. But like a lot of things we try to figure out on our own, we get our relationship with our adversaries wrong as well. Jesus instructs us to not just tolerate our enemies, but to actually extend love to them. When we genuinely pray for another person, we are essentially showing care for them. We are calling to the Father to bless them in some way…to better their lives in some manner…to love them and provide for them. But the idea of actually showing love for an enemy seems to fly completely in the face of the “worldly wisdom” that has been programmed into us since childhood. We are called to engage in this seemingly “bizarre and backwards” because it is exactly what Jesus did. Jesus had a lot of enemies when he walked this land…from his very first breath (remember King Herod?) to his very final breath, there were people vying to knock him out. But not once did Jesus respond to his enemies in sin…not once did he lash out at them in a sinful way that would contradict the commands of the Father. Not once did he sink to the level of sin that was being poured out on him daily. He remained perfect, he remained steadfast to the commands of his Heavenly Father. And despite the constant opposition and presence of countless enemies, Jesus still took that cross. He took it for those that loved him and those that hated him…he took it for those who worked with him and those that worked against him…he took it for his friends and for his enemies. When Christ died on that cross, it was the greatest example of perfect, selfless, and complete love. While we knowingly can’t live perfect lives like Christ did, we can certainly use what he did as a guide for our lives today. We can certainly call to the Father to fill us with the Holy Spirit so that we can do what might seem completely impossible through our own strength. We can love as Christ loves. May that be our goal each today…to seek the Holy Spirit so that we too may love as Christ loves. To God be the glory!