“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children 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.  If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?  And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others?  Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly father is perfect.”  Matthew 5:43-48

We began this week by talking about how we should treat other people.  Isn’t it interesting that human nature is usually just the opposite of what God tells us to do.  It’s as if God designed us to want to do the opposite of what He wants us to do.  So that means that we have to work much harder at doing the right thing.  It’s perfectly natural to want to seek revenge when someone has wronged you.  It’s perfectly natural to hate someone who is your enemy.  But we are not called to be perfectly natural, we are called to be perfect like our heavenly father.  Now we know that we can’t be perfect, only Jesus lived a life that was perfect, but it gives us something to work for.  It gives us a reference point.

There is nothing natural about the God we serve.  There is nothing natural about the reward that awaits us and there is definitely nothing natural about the power and the strength that we receive from God when He fills us with the Holy Spirit.

So with that being said, let’s aim for the supernatural and let’s look at what God wants us to do.

God wants us to love our neighbors and love our enemies.  God wants us to pray for those who persecute us.  Now you may wonder why God would want us to pray for those who persecute us?  After all, God knows they are being mean and hateful so why do we need to pray for them.  Well for one thing it’s hard to be angry or bitter towards someone and pray for them.  So praying can help to remove bitterness.  Praying helps to aid in the process of forgiving.

So the first step in this whole loving your enemies thing is to forgive them.  We must forgive them and turn the whole mess over to God.  Then we must pray for them.  We may also need to pray more than once for God to remove any any bitterness that we may feel towards them.  When we love our enemies it means that even though they may not be kind to us that we are kind to them and that we help them when they need help.  When you love your enemies, it means that you don’t treat them like enemies.  You treat them like loved ones.

In this scripture passage, God tells us that anyone can love their neighbor and hate their enemies, but again he calls us to stand out and be different.

Loving others makes us stand out.  Loving those that are unloveable helps others to know that we are Christians. John 13:35 tells us that everyone will know that we are Christ’s disciples by our love for one another.

This scripture passage tells us that God causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain to the righteous and unrighteous.  In other words, God loves all of his children.  He loves you and me and our enemies.  Now the Bible tells us that we grieve the Holy Spirit when we are angry, bitter, and malicious.  So if someone is coming against you, they are angering God.  If you respond in kind, then you are also angering God.  Now let me give you a little piece of advice here, your goal may be to anger your enemy but if doing so angers God, it is not worth it.

Now when someone plots evil against a child of God, that is not God encouraging them to do that, that’s the devil.  We will talk about that more later in the week.

We talked the other day about turning the other cheek.  I am not saying that you should be someone’s doormat and put up with repeated mistreatment.  I am simply saying that the Bible tells us how to properly deal with those that are coming against us.  We will discuss this in the next few days.

But our scripture today is basically giving us a starting point for how to deal with those that persecute us.

Pray for them, don’t plot evil against them.  God will discipline them if they don’t get right.

Look at it this way, when the devil uses someone to come against you, he is setting a trap for you. The devil wants us to respond as the world tells us to respond.  The devil wants us to get angry and get even.  Don’t fall into that trap.  Now come on, you are smarter than that.  See the trap for what it is.  Pray for them, forgive them, ask God to help you to not be angry at this person or have bitter feelings towards them.

There is a good chance as you go through this day that the devil will use someone to try to make you angry.  The Bible says do not sin in your anger.  But the devil knows that making someone angry is a great way to lead them into sinful behavior.  So if someone makes you angry today, stop and think about something.  This verse challenges us to be perfect like the heavenly father.

Don’t only ask what would Jesus do, but remember what Jesus did do.  Jesus who knew no sin came to earth to take on the sin of mankind, to die a humiliating death on a cross, for people who despised Him.  That’s right think about this.  He came to die so that everyone may be saved, even those who persecuted Him.  While He was dying on the cross, he said “Father forgive them for they know not what they do”.  Wow, can’t we forgive someone for an offense committed against us?  Can’t we just turn it over to God and let Him handle it?

We will never be perfect like Jesus, but our goal for each and every day should be to strive to come as close as we can.  So as you go forth today, try to remember the mercy and grace that He extends to us.  He does this so that we may extend that same mercy and grace to others.

Tomorrow we will look at how the Bible teaches us to handle problems with others.

Have a great day!