Matthew 5:43-48
Vs. 45 “that you may be sons of your Father in heaven”
Today is our third week in this text. Jesus has put to rest the idea that we are to love our neighbors but hate our enemies and has given the command that we love our enemies. He has commanded us to treat others in the same manner that He has treated us. The command to love our enemies is not a religious act, it is not a mountain to climb or a chore to finish or a debt to repay; it is a response to having been loved when we were God’s enemies. The origin of loving our enemies is not found in us, it is found in Romans 5:10 “while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son”. God never asks us to do anything as His children that He has not already done for us as our Father. We are called to love our enemies because we were enemies loved by God. In God’s generosity He did not instruct His Son to command us to love our enemies and then not tell us how. Jesus defines the action of loving our enemies as blessing those who curse us, doing good to those who hate us and above all, praying for those who persecute us. If God is love, if there is no greater love than giving your life for your friends, if God so loved the world that He gave His Son, then Jesus as the very image of the invisible God is not just a gift of love to us, He is the revelation of what love looks like and how love acts. And so, we are then called to love our enemies in the same manner that Jesus has loved His and currently loves us. He died for all sin in obedience to the Father, we must live in obedience to God. And then He sat down at the right hand of God and ever makes intercession for us. I would argue that if Jesus is now interceding then intercession is the greatest action of love that can be offered to any man. We love our enemies by praying for them, we love our neighbors in the same manner that Jesus loves us, by praying for them. Prayer is our greatest action of love! From prayer many things will come. From prayer we will heal the sick, cast out demons, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the prisoner, bind up the broken-hearted but none of those things are to be confused with the act from which they flow. Prayer give us access to the God that is love and from prayer flows the bounty of God’s love to men through our good works. In speaking of the action of loving our enemies, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote “This is the supreme command, through the medium of prayer we go to our enemy, stand by his side, and plead for him to God.” Praying for our enemies is not praying about them to God but praying to God to bless them, to do good to them, to care for them, to heal them, to restore them, to be kind to them, even to not hold their sin against them.