HOW TO BECOME PEOPLE WHO LOVE EVEN OUR ENEMIES
By Steve Behlke
Dallas Willard wants churches to teach Jesus' followers how to love as Jesus loved. Makes sense. For me, it is a work of grace, so it is something that God alone works into the hearts of His children. Therefore, receiving God's grace - i.e., love for our enemies - through faith has lots to do with it. Still, Willard is right in his lamentation that so few churches have such a teaching process in place.
With that in mind, the following may be a starting place for an individual or small group or a community of bloggers (I almost said "a community of beggars" which in any conversation of grace is an appropriate term for Christian believers [see Luther]).
Let's start with Jesus' words recorded in Luke chapter 6,
Luke 6:27 But I tell you who hear me: 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 strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your coat, offer him your shirt also.
At first glance, since many of us have heard these words so many times, we may blow past this without being startled or stripped naked by Jesus' scandalous statements. So reread them again as if you've never heard them before or as if Jesus really, really meant it!
Luke 6:27 But I tell you who hear me: 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 strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your coat, offer him your shirt also.
Wow, huh! And as hard as it is to love a generic group of people ("your enemies") - let's personalize it by putting a name or a face to the phrase "love your enemies":
... Love the Muslim extremists who intend to harm you (what)...
... Love the young man who just seduced your daughter (Yikes)...
... Love your neighbor who supports the political party that you love to hate...
... Love the proud-to-be-an-atheist who arrogantly hates Christians...
... Love the rightwing Christian who is condemning homosexuals and other "sinners" for bringing God's judgment on America...
Yikes. But yeah, that's pretty much within the scope of Jesus' scandalous call to love our enemies.
And He was just getting started. Continue on and see how Jesus Christ, whom we call Lord, insistently calls us to an unprejudiced, uncompromised, and totally extravant love:
Luke 6:32 If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even "sinners" love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even "sinners" do that. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even "sinners" lend to "sinners," expecting to be repaid in full. 35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because He is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
Jesus is apparently not at all impressed when Christians love those who love us or when we simply love like and whom the world loves. That's ordinary. Christ offers to do so much more through us.
He calls those who would follow Him to love extraordinarily, unreasonably, like Jesus: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who mistreat you.
Wow, that's Christian living. That requires God's work in us all the way. But this is what Jesus wants to do through us. It's what Jesus wants us to trust Him for. It's what He wants to do with us. We can all love nice people and moms and those who seem to love us. But He wants to love our enemies, through us.
Let me hear from you:
1. Why is it so important to Jesus that we love like this? (Why should this be important to us?
2. Why do we justify not loving certain people as Christ would have us?
3. What would happen if we actually loved like and whom Jesus would have us love?
4. How would it look in your church or neighborhood? (Who would you treat differently? In what way?)
5. Finally, what do we need from God to be a people who love - even our enemies - in the way of Jesus?
In other words, what must we trust about God?
What must we receive from God?
What would we need to do?
At this point, might any spiritual disciplines be appropriate in this conversation (things like forgiving others, repentance, prayer, obedience)?
Start the conversation...
It is important to Jesus that we love like Him because His is the only true love. In our fallen state we are more at odds with one another than for each other. Because I didn't live in ancient times I have no idea how people related to each other. As long as I've been alive and in the USA, it has basically been under the influence of Christianity. So all of my life I've been taught to be loving, but it has been a conditional type of love, but with unselfish love also. But not until I came into relationship with Jesus did I know what agape love was. I believe we are, in our fallen state, enemies of one another. We are in direct opposition to each other due to Satanic control. When we place our faith in Christ then we begin to learn how to love as he loves. As we mature in our faith through abiding in Him in His Holy Bible and in fellowship with other believers, and we unite together in pray we learn more and more of HIs love and enter more and more into it. In this process we unite with each other by way of His Holy Spirit, and thus we are more a part of Him. Agape love is the nurture that makes the Body grow. God's Words are the food. Only through Jesus' love can we thwart the work of Satan.
I balk at daring to love some people because I learned from the social situations that I grew up in that some people were not nice people. In some instances I was taught to fear some people. Luckily for me I grew up in a wonderfully ethnic neighborhood. Luckily for me I have had the gift of love since I was quite young. I knew and believed in Jesus from the age of about seven. My personal relationship with Him began at around age 32. I have a hard time with some forms of worship because I was an Episcopalian and active through age 18. My mother frowned on anything other than Episcopal worship, and my mother was very controlling of me. But God had other plans and here I am.
then I think if we all loved each other like Jesus in agape or unconditional love, the whole membership of The College Church, then the walls of our building that many here call church (erroneously), the whole building would fall apart because it wouldn't be strong enough to hold it all. I mean it!! We would have no desire to remain in our present form of worship and would just be drawn to the streets and the bars and the houses that attract sinners. I'm not sure where we would ever after that be able to congregate in fellowship, because we would be bringing too many new Christians back with us.
We need to ask Him to keep on revealing Himself to us. In some way we must pray. If we don't know how to pray then ask God. Simply put, "Jesus please teach me to pray." We need to read the Bible from Genesis through Exodus. I think this is a must for new Christians or those who've never read the Bible at all. In these two disciplines you'll be abiding in Christ.
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Jesus' words are hard, no impossible to follow in the flesh. For me loving my brother and sisters in Christ requires a selflessness I do not possess. Never mind taking it to the next level and saying love your enemy, those who persecute you, and mistreat you, abuse you.
BUT- then all the Holy spirit says "Right" Then I surrender to the one who did this in the first place, and does it daily.
My problem, and possibly our problem, is the issue of surrender, repentence, brokenness and corporate prayer. Come Holy Spirit.
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