“You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!” Matthew 5:43-44
An uncomfortable few verses to say the least, but this is exactly where Jesus and I have been camped out together for the past few days. Right here in the verses that make you squirm, right in the hard but necessary. While I can’t promise you the warm fuzzies, I can almost guarantee a taste of freedom if you’ll choose to dive in. Do you care to join me for the next few minutes?
Matthew 5:43-44 falls smack dab in the middle of Jesus’ longest and most popular recorded sermon in all of Scripture, “The Sermon on the Mount.” He speaks for what I can only imagine was hours to a crowd that outnumbered many of our weekend church services by thousands, and within just a few chapters of Scripture, Jesus covers just about everything we need to know. Divorce, adultery, anger, revenge, love, lust, oaths, generosity, faith, prayer, fasting, and anxiety are among the topics he addressed, and I find myself wishing I could have just been there, witnessing it first-hand.
Nearly everything Jesus taught was (and remains) counter-cultural. It seems counter-intuitive to love your enemy, does it not? And to pray for those who persecute you? Why on earth would we do that? Shouldn’t we fight back? Shouldn’t we defend? Shouldn’t we repay?
Not in God’s economy.
To love your enemy was something I’ve heard about since I was just a child. Understanding its implications wasn’t something I fully grasped until adulthood, when the word “enemy” was no longer just a concept, but rather took on the form of flesh and blood. The ones who wound us deeply and cause so much pain in our lives, the ones who slander us, the ones who betray us, the ones who abuse us, the ones who take advantage of us, the ones who mistreat us, the ones who belittle us, the ones who lie to us or about us—to love even them.
Is it possible? To love the offender? As much as this passage makes me squirm, I can’t help but love the heart of God woven through each word. You see, Jesus doesn’t just command us to do THE MOST DIFFICULT thing imaginable, and then walk away. Nope. He follows it up with the “how to.” Did you miss it? Read it again:
“You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!” Matthew 5:43-44
Do you see it? How do you love your enemies?
YOU PRAY FOR THEM.
I’ve learned this lesson the hard way. Thinking that if I held on to my resentment or bitterness long enough that it would somehow affect the one who hurt me—this was just foolishness. When I finally humbled myself to pray for them (and believe me, it requires humility and the death of our pride to do this), the bitterness melted away the more time I spent on my knees. You can’t hate someone while praying for them. Prayer for your enemy erases the resentment and replaces it with compassion. The more you pray for them, the more God softens and changes YOUR heart. The heavy, unbearable weight of unforgiveness, resentment, and bitterness falls at the foot of the cross. And you’re finally free from its burden.
When you love your enemies.
When you pray for them.
Don’t you see? God’s economy doesn’t operate like ours. His ways are better. His thoughts are higher. His work is greater. Could you choose today to lay down your pride and while you’re bending over to release that weight, why not just go to your knees? To love your enemies is to know the heart of God, our Father, who sent us His perfect Son as a sinless sacrifice for our sins. Although we were enemies of God in our sin, He came to rescue us. What better way to imitate Him than to love as He loved.
To love your enemies.
To pray for those who persecute you.
This is the heartbeat of God.
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