Matthew 5:43-48

Matthew 5:43-48

You have heard that it was being said, “You will love your neighbor and you will hate your enemy.”  But I say to you all: love your enemies and pray on behalf of the ones who persecute you all in order that you all should become sons of your Father in heaven because He causes His sun to rise upon the evildoer and the doer of good and He brings rain upon the righteous and the unrighteous.  For if you all should love the ones who love you, what reward do you all have?  Do not the tax collectors do the same thing?  And if you all should welcome only your brothers, what do you do that is remarkable?  Do not even the Gentiles do the same thing?  Therefore, you all will be mature in behavior as your Father is also mature in behavior.

Thoughts for Today

First Thought:

Pray for your enemies.  Pray for them!  So often we overlook prayer.  But I think there are two reasons that Jesus tells us to pray for our enemies.  First, Jesus tells us to pray for our enemies because they need it and prayer is a powerful thing.  But perhaps more importantly, it is difficult to consider someone an enemy when you have prayed for them for any considerable length of time.  When we pray for people, we tend to learn to care about them.  Jesus is trying to get us to see that care and compassion is far more important than bitterness and enmity.

Are you able to pray for your enemies?  Do you care about them?  Are you compassionate towards the ones that the world would give you permission to hate?

Second Thought:

I love the question that Jesus asks towards the end of this passage.  “What do you do that is remarkable?”  This is a powerful question because it speaks to testimony.  It speaks to how our actions speak to others.  It speaks to how the message of Christ is transmitted.  If I do nothing remarkable, who will see God in me?  If I am not different than the rest of the world, how will I have any message to give to the world?  No.  It is up to me to be intentionally different than the world so that the world has something about which they can remark!  The world can certainly see the difference and reject it.  That is between the world and God.  But they need to be able to see something remarkable first!

What in your life is remarkable?  How are you different than the world around you?  How can people see those differences?  How would those differences draw them to you – and more importantly – to God?

Third Thought:

So why do we love?  Why do we rise to a higher bar of loving our enemies?  Yes, it is to demonstrate God’s love.  But there is a higher reason.  We love in the tough times because that is what will make us like God.  That is what will give us the character of God.  That is what will allow God’s character to dwell within us and replace our sinful humanity.  Think about it.  What is the greatest single defining moment of our relationship with God?  There is no greater moment than Christ on the cross.  Without that incredible act of love for the enemies of God nothing we do would be good enough to bring us into relationship with God.  When we love our enemies we are like Christ who likewise loved His enemies.  He loved enough to die for them.  We love our enemies because that is what it is like to have the character of God within us.

Passage for Tomorrow: Matthew 6:1-4