Love Them

 DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW

LOVE THEM

Matt 5:43-48

43 "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 44 But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

NIV

From what we can gather, the Jews were in a special class, in that they were the chosen people of God, and all others were not, and thus were the Jew's natural enemy. If war was to take place, they were told to destroy their enemy, kill them all. This would prevent any intermarriage, thus diluting the Jewish line. However, even in many nations throughout the world today, we still have natural enemies and wars have been a way of life for mankind. We would have to believe that Jesus is not talking about loving our enemy in the same sense that we love our neighbor or friend as the Greek word could be used as one nearby or a friend. This would imply to the Jews, other Jews, and the gentiles would not be one nearby or a friend. Still, when we look at the love of God, it is unconditional in the sense he loves the world that he gave his only Son so that whosoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life. This applies to all mankind. However, loving our enemy may not mean that we have to either condone their behavior, or even their persecution of us, in whatever form that appears. The fact is we cannot hate them, despise them, but we should pray for them, that they will come to their senses, and hear the voice of the Spirit wooing them to repentance. This loving our enemy is not embracing them with loving arms but loving them as God loves them. Although they will be judged for their evil deeds, unless they repent, and accept Jesus, God still loves them. Love does not replace justice, for justice is done through love. Just as a parent disciplines a child out of love for them, so God does with those who are disobedient. Still, we are not to hate the person, although we might dislike his behavior. Again, it comes down to living with grace and love. How can we distinguish who we should love and who we should not love? In the natural, it would seem it is easy to find or be found by someone we do not like. In the natural, it seems we can develop certain biases toward certain groups of people, even other Christian groups, such as those crazy Pentecostals, or those stoic Baptists who think they are the only ones going to heaven. We can get so upset over sports, political, or even economic rivals. In the natural, we may even have a bias toward other nationalities, or ethnicities without even realizing it. But do we see all people as a creation of God, and thus someone to be of value to God and therefore require our love and prayers. This may not be easy in the natural, in fact, it is not easy, at times, to love our neighbor as ourselves. Again, this is not the benevolent Agape love, but rather the social or moral agapao type love. Only God can love benevolently, as man is the benefactor of his love, yet we can exhibit a moral and social love of others because we know that God loves them. We have to live in the Spirit, and not in the flesh if we are going to follow this principle of grace and love.