Love my enemies?...Matthew 5:43-48...Point 1 summary from Jesus

 

Another Cascade Falls on the trail from Monarch Lake up to Crater Lake.

Crater Lake and looking at Lone Eagle Peak.

Maybe the cascading waterfalls is a good picture of what Jesus' disciples are experiencing as they sit with Him on the mountainside and He is instructing them on what a disciple of Himself is like.  It might have felt like a cascading waterfall of information that involved tremendous life change.  Jesus was pouring out to them that His ways are much higher than man's ways.

Last week we studied that He told them to not promote themselves by puffing themselves up but that their communication would be a simple yes and no response.  He told them not to return insult for insult.  He told them to give to those who want to take and rely on Him for their needs.  He told them to go the extra mile with those who who are using force or rights to get their way.  He told them to be people who share instead of store.  Each of these situations could open a door to tell those slapping, taking, or demanding who you follow and why you are responding in a very different way than the world.

Jesus ends this section with giving the ultimate but also the necessary to all of these actions and instructions.  Jesus told His disciples not to love their neighbor and hate their enemy but to love their enemies.  We are to hate evil but who does the evil?  We do.  People do.  So it is hard to not hate those who do evil and not just the evil itself.  But when we hate those who do evil it is very hard, I would say impossible, to tell them and show them the love of God.  

I have often wondered, what if your neighbor is your enemy?  What wins out, loving them or hating them?  You are in confusion of what to do.  God does not want His children to be in confusion so He tells us to love both ways.  Your single instruction from Jesus is to love.  We love our enemies with the truth of who Jesus is and could be to them if they turn to Him, as we have done, as our Savior.  This truth exposes the evil in our lives so it can be submitted to Him for forgiveness and life transformation.  Our love for our enemies is not without an opportunity to point them to Jesus.  It is not a love that is wishy washy but very directive in our attitudes and actions that keeps our mission in focus.  

In this passage the disciples are compared to tax collectors and Gentiles, the most unholy people they knew at the time.  Previously they were compared to the scribes and the Pharisees, the most holy people they knew at the time.  The order of the comparison is important.  The tax collectors love those who love them.  If you love me then I will love you.  The Gentiles greeted their own brethren only.  I will greet only those who are of my tribe.  This is so not like a disciple of Jesus.  A disciple of Jesus loves first like God loved us first before we loved Him.  We take the first step just like we take the first step in the process of reconciliation both ways.  A disciple of Jesus doesn't make a determination of a greeting based on outward appearance.  A disciple of Jesus sees the soul within and goes to the opposite side of the room where the other side is congregating.  

When we love and not hate; when we bless and not curse; when we do good and not hate; and when we pray for those who persecute us and spitefully use us then we are perfect, or complete, or fully ripe like our Father in heaven.  We are loving like Him.  People hate Him, curse Him, spitefully use Him and persecute Him but God so loved the world that He gave...

Cascading instruction from our Savior.

Adam