Easier Said Than Done!
“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. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Matthew 5:43-48
Sometimes the problem with Scripture is not that we don’t understand it, but that we understand it and don’t know how we can possibly do it! Jesus’ words here are straightforward. “Love your enemies.” “Pray for those who persecute you.” We saw this already when we looked at the end of the “Beatitudes.” There Jesus said, “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. (Matt 5:11)” If we thought we might find a way to soften his words there, it becomes impossible to water them down here.
Jesus quotes a popular saying, “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” Not too hard to do. Be nice to those who are nice to you and hate everyone else. Jesus reminds us that even the non-Christian, sinful world generally loves those who are nice, good, and kind to them. A person would have to be a real jerk to be mean to people who are nice to them. If you say, “hi,” in response to people who are friendly and greet you, how is that surprising?
If you want to be like your Heavenly Father, act like you are related to him as one of his children! God is gracious to all in some ways. “He makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” This is referred to as God’s “common grace.” In some ways God is good and merciful to all. Just the fact that he allows sinners to wake up in the morning is an expression of his common grace. Jesus says that even evil parents know how to give good things to their children (Matt 7:11). We know that God has special or particular grace to those who have come into a relationship with him and are now his children. In Matthew 6 we learn that unlike the unbelievers, God meets the needs of his children (Matt 6:25-33). God is good to all in some ways, but he is good in all ways to his children (cf. Rom 8:28).
The hardest part of this is that Jesus is not just saying that we need to ACT like we love our enemies, he says we need to love our enemies FROM THE HEART. This is why this must be a supernatural renovation of the heart through the work of the Holy Spirit. The first kind of love is just going through the motions of love regardless of what we think or feel. The latter is genuinely being motivated by a God-given love for others. This does not mean you have to love everything other people do or agree with all their choices. This does not mean that you must ignore hurtful or evil things that another person does. We can love another person and still want God to administer justice if that person does not genuinely repent and believe. Love and justice are not in conflict.
It does mean that, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we must be decidedly different in our response and in our love for others from the heart. There should be something noticeably different about us because we are children of our Heavenly Father. Some of his character traits should shine through in us towards our enemies.
