Tag Archives: love your enemies

BE A LOSER TO BE A WINNER

Christian Life, ,

BE A LOSER TO BE A WINNER

27 “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. 30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Luke 6:27-30

“What are you saying, Jesus? You can’t be serious!”

Oh, but He was. If you want to know what power is, this is real power. There is no true power in retaliation. It only takes a bit of physical or emotional energy to hit back when someone hurts or offends you. But what kind of power does it take to absorb the blows and respond with kindness and generosity? It takes power over one’s own self not to give back blow for blow.

But it takes far more than sheer will-power to stop oneself from hitting back. That is a perfectly natural reaction coming from a human point of view, but Jesus was talking about an attitude that is far more than what comes out of our fallen human nature. He was talking about a changed disposition that comes from a completely different perspective.

What will it take to change us from reacting to responding? Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3 that, to “see” and enter the kingdom of God will take the equivalent of going back to the beginning of our life and starting over again with a new nature. That is impossible in the natural, as Nicodemus discovered, but God can do it through His power at work in our spirits.

Paul speaks of this superanatural event as “being raised from the dead” — a spiritual resurrection that is like waking up to a new realm where we understand everything from God’s point of view.

God is not a tit-for-tat God. He treats us according to who He is, not according to the way we speak or behave. That’s the way His rule operates. Human parents would understand this. If your son misbehaves, he is still you son, no matter what. A good parent will address the behaviour, not bully or disown the child because he has behaved badly.

When we were born from above, God gave us the potential and the power to respond to situations out of who we are in Christ, not out of who we were in Adam. And He gives us opportunities to show the ones who offend us what He is like by absorbing the wrongdoing and not adding to it by retaliating.

But it’s even more than that. Jesus said that its not about non-retaliation. It’s about actively responding with generosity. That’s how God treats us. The best way to “destroy” your enemy is not to beat him up or kill him but to make him your friend. He will cease to exist as an enemy and come alongside you instead of standing against you.

What kind of perspective can change our attitude towards the ones we perceive as enemies? There are two things that have helped me see things from God’s point of view. Firstly, God wants us to treat everyone with dignity because we have all been created in His image. To dish out cruelty to another human being is to treat God with the same attitude. Who would want to do that?

Secondly, people’s words and behaviour reveal who they are, not who I am. I don’t have to mirror who they are by retaliating. I want to mirror who God is by offering kindness and generosity for unkindness and meanness. Absorbing the blows will stop them right there and offer your enemy the opportunity to change his mind as well.

Have you tried it? You can, with God’s grace.

LOVE REDEFINED

Christian Life, ,

LOVE REDEFINED

You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 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. (Matt. 5: 43-45)

There is no command in Scripture or record of hating one’s enemies in the Jewish writings. What did Jesus mean by the words “love” and “hate”? Was He using it in the same sense as His words in Luke 14: 26?

If anyone comes to me and does not hate his mother and father, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters – yes, even his own life – he cannot be my disciple.

Here we have another problem of the Hebrew language. Biblical Hebrew has no way of expressing “more than” and “less than”. Instead, it uses extremes to express degrees of comparison, for example, “love” and “hate” to imply “love more” or “love less”. 

Was Jesus, in fact, saying that we should not love our enemies less than we love our neighbour or our friend? This does not have anything to do with the way we feel about our enemies but about the way we treat them.

If you love those who love you, what reward do you get? Are not even tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matt. 5: 46-48)

What did Jesus mean by “love”? Does loving those who hate us and have ill-will towards us mean that we deliberately open ourselves to their abuse or, even worse, to the opportunity to do us harm in the name of love? That would be foolish and would accomplish nothing to restore broken relationships.

We have Jesus Himself to show us the way. How did He love His enemies? Strangely enough, He showed His love for them by telling them the truth. Why would His rather ruthless exposure of their hypocrisy be a gesture of love? Doesn’t it seem like retaliation for the way they treated Him? We could view His accusations as retaliation except for one thing. Jesus confronted them the truth so that they could make a choice.

We, so often, tell people what we think is the truth – in love, of course – to express our frustration or to retaliate against their treatment of us. Our accusations are most often a justification and comparison of us against them and their failure to live up to our standards rather than the expression of God’s standard. What made Jesus different from us?

His motive was not to justify or exonerate Himself when they accused Him of disregarding the Law. His motive was to open their eyes to their disregard for what God intended in the His Law – what Jesus called their blatant disregard for the “weightier matters of the law.”

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices – mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law – justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practised the latter without neglecting the former (Matt. 23:23).

By telling them the truth, they were given the opportunity to come back to God’s way and walk in the truth or to ignore Jesus’ warning and bring destruction down on their own heads.

If anyone hears my word but does not keep them, I do not judge that person. For I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; the very words I have spoken will condemn them at the last day (John 12: 27-28).

Jesus also forgave those who mistreated Him. Love always forgives, no matter how another treats us. Forgiveness opens the possibility of the offender responding to God’s forgiveness. If we give hatred for hatred, we lock ourselves and our enemies into the brokenness that holds the world captive to Satan’s ways. Forgiveness frees us to breathe in the pure air (of the spirit) of God’s kingdom.   

As sons and daughters of God, our behaviour is to be above that of tax collectors and pagans of whom nothing more is expected than that they treat decently only those who reciprocate decently.

God is generous. He provides for those who never give Him a thought or offer Him any gratitude for His generosity. God acts in accordance with His own nature. His children are required to live up to the spirit of Torah just as He does.

Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Jesus And His Enemies

Christian Life, , , ,

JESUS AND HIS ENEMIES

If Jesus loved the down-and-outs like that, what about His enemies? When we read the gospels, it seems that He had it in for them. He took every opportunity to tell them off in public and to make them squirm and look like fools. Did He tell His disciples one thing and do the opposite? He was big on “Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you. Don’t take revenge. Let God avenge the wrong they do to you.” But He mercilessly exposed the wicked hearts of the religious leaders. How loving was that?

We have to concede that Jesus was always guided by the truth. When He collided with the Pharisees and the religious leaders, what was His motive? What was the difference between the “sinners” and the Pharisees? Need!

Jesus did not have to tell the “sick” ones how sick they were. They knew it. Just like a medical doctor whose job is to prescribe treatment for the sick, not condemn the patient for his condition, it was not Jesus’s role to beat on those who knew they were sick. They flocked to Him because He had treatment for their diseases, both physical and spiritual. They hung on His words because He supplied answers for their need.

The religious ones, on the other hand, were so full of their own self-righteousness that they didn’t need Jesus or the message He came to bring. They were quite satisfied with the status quo, thank you very much, and even hated Him for showing up their shallowness, emptiness and hypocrisy. They needed to hear the diagnosis, whether they wanted it or not because, unless they understood how deathly sick they were, they would die without even trying to find a cure.

Jesus revealed His love for them in the very truth He told them which they refused to hear. Once He had told them the truth, it was up to them what they did with it. If they chose not to respond, their guilt was theirs on Judgment Day when they had to give an account of what they did with their lives.

Surely, speaking the truth is the most loving thing a person can do, regardless of whether the other person wants to hear it or not, or will respond or not. The responsibility becomes his when the words have been spoken.

This is where attitude and motive come in. What was Jesus’s attitude? His very words and tone conveyed anger. Why was He angry?  Was it right for Him to be angry? Anger is not sinful if it directed at the right object and for the right reasons. Jesus’s anger was not selfish. He had nothing personal to defend. His anger was directed at those who misled the people they were supposed to be teaching the truth.

The whole of Matt. 23 is an outburst of anger against the Pharisees for misrepresenting God and His Word and for increasing the load of rules and rituals on the people and then judging them for failing while they basked in their hypocritical self-righteousness. Righteous anger has a redemptive purpose if it is heeded, but brings judgment if it is ignored. It was Jesus’s anger that eventually took Him to the cross because he never gave up on exposing those who opposed Him.

What was His motive? Once again it was the truth. He wanted them to hear and to respond to the truth. If they refused, it was on their own heads.

As for the person who hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world but to save it. There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; the very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day. (John 12: 47-48)

Jesus’s words of accusation were never vindictive or directed towards settling a personal grudge. He was fighting for justice for those who were wronged by the attitude and behaviour of the Pharisees.

His exasperation with those who refused to listen to Him culminated in an outburst of tears.

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord,’ (Matt 23: 37-39)

Is that not the expression of love?

Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my first book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3,                                                                              eBook 978-4828-0511-6

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or Kindle version, on www.takealot.com  or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

Do you like this post? Then buy your own copy of my book, Learning to be a Disciple, which is also available from www.amazon.com or www.takealot.com in South Africa. You can also order a copy directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com

Watch this space!

My latest book, The Heartbeat of Holiness, will also soon be available.

 

 

Love Redefined

Christian Life, , , ,

LOVE REDEFINED

You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 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. (Matt. 5: 43-45)

There is no command in Scripture or record of hating one’s enemies in the Jewish writings. What did Jesus mean by the words “love” and “hate”? Was He using it in the same sense as His words in Luke 14: 26?

If anyone comes to me and does not hate his mother and father, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters – yes, even his own life – he cannot be my disciple.

Here we have another problem of the Hebrew language. Biblical Hebrew has no way of expressing “more than” and “less than”. Instead, it uses extremes to express degrees of comparison, for example, “love” and “hate” to imply “love more” or “love less”.

Was Jesus, in fact, saying that we should not love our enemies less than we love our neighbour or our friend? This does not have anything to do with the way we feel about our enemies but about the way we treat them.

If you love those who love you, what reward do you get? Are not even tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matt. 5: 46-48)

What did Jesus mean by “love”? Does loving those who hate us and have ill-will towards us mean that we deliberately open ourselves to their abuse or, even worse, to the opportunity to do us harm in the name of love? That would be foolish and would accomplish nothing to restore broken relationships.

We have Jesus Himself to show us the way. How did He love His enemies? Strangely enough, He showed His love for them by telling them the truth. Why would His rather ruthless exposure of their hypocrisy be a gesture of love? Doesn’t it seem like retaliation for the way they treated Him? We could view His accusations as retaliation except for one thing. Jesus confronted them the truth so that they could make a choice.

We, so often, tell people what we think is the truth – in love, of course – to express our frustration or to retaliate against their treatment of us. Our accusations are most often a justification and comparison of us against them and their failure to live up to our standards rather than the expression of God’s standard. What made Jesus different from us?

His motive was not to justify or exonerate Himself when they accused Him of disregarding the Law. His motive was to open their eyes to their disregard for what God intended in the His Law – what Jesus called their blatant disregard for the “weightier matters of the law.”

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices – mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law – justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practised the latter without neglecting the former (Matt. 23:23).

By telling them the truth, they were given the opportunity to come back to God’s way and walk in the truth or to ignore Jesus’ warning and bring destruction down on their own heads.

If anyone hears my word but does not keep them, I do not judge that person. For I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; the very words I have spoken will condemn them at the last day (John 12: 27-28).

Jesus also forgave those who mistreated Him. Love always forgives, no matter how another treats us. Forgiveness opens the possibility of the offender responding to God’s forgiveness. If we give hatred for hatred, we lock ourselves and our enemies into the brokenness that holds the world captive to Satan’s ways. Forgiveness frees us to breathe in the pure air (of spirit) of God’s kingdom.

As sons and daughters of God, our behaviour is to be above that of tax collectors and pagans of whom nothing more is expected than that they treat decently only those who reciprocate decently.

God is generous. He provides for those who never give Him a thought or offer Him any gratitude for His generosity. God acts in accordance with His own nature. His children are required to live up to the spirit of Torah just as He does.

Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my first book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3,                                                                              eBook 978-4828-0511-6

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or Kindle version, on www.takealot.com  or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

My second book, Learning to be a Disciple – The Way of the Master (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing), a companion volume to Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart, has been released in paperback and digital format on www.amazon.com.

For more details, check my website:

http://luellaannettecampbell.com/

Have you read my blogs on www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com