SAY WHAT? “But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you… “(Matthew 5:44) Bible Reading: Matthew 5:38-48
Have you ever been in the company of someone who makes a statement so far out, that one’s inevitable comment is: “You must be kidding!” I can almost imagine those early disciples, at the very least, thinking this when Jesus makes this radical statement. Love you enemies? Pray for your persecutors? Impossible, surely! Impossible, yes, but only if one is viewing it solely from a human perspective. If the well of love from which one is drawing is a human one, then loving one’s enemies is not an option. From that well will only come conditional love reserved for those who reciprocate it. If one opts to draw from the fountain from which love flows freely to an undeserving world, driving the perfect Lamb of God to criminal’s cross on behalf of sinners – then loving the unlovable becomes not only possible, but an inner compulsion. There’s nothing necessarily to gain from this kind of loving, other than glorifying the One who commands it – Love personified, our precious Lord. This love is not an emotion; it’s a choice.
Prayer: God of love, Whose Name is Love, Whose love knows no breadth nor length; to love my loathers and feel for my foes, I confess I need your daily strength.
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