LOVE YOUR ENEMIES
Luke 6:27-31
“But I say to you who hear: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you. To him who strikes you on the one cheek, offer the other also. And from him who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who asks of you. And from him who takes away your goods do not ask them back. And just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise.”
Personal Challenge
Once again, Jesus gives us a rule to live our lives by that is so contradictory to what the world around us tells us to do. Love our enemies. Why would we want to do that? Treat those who treat us badly with kindness? Why? How? Isn't this what God does every moment of every day when so many reject Him? In my recent readings of Tertullian, an early church father, he deals with this passage in his book against Marcionism (look it up). He teaches that the Old Testament teaching of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, was the establishment of a law to create fear in us. A fear that drives us to do good in order to avoid the consequences. He teaches that Jesus, by fulfilling the law, gives us the rule to lover our enemies so that we can transcend this fear and choose to treat our fellow human nicely, no matter how they treat us. This is lively a godly life. Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner!
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