Description
Living Out Christ’s Teachings: The Challenge of Loving Your Enemies
Salvation is described as both a free and sweet gif… (visit YouTube for more)
Transcript
The gift of salvation is free and it’s sweet, so sweet. But that doesn’t mean that it’s easy. It’s difficult actually to follow Christ, to walk how Jesus walked. We need the Holy Spirit to empower us. And let’s look how difficult it is, when we reflect on Luke chapter six, verse 35. But love your enemies and do good, and lend expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you’ll be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.
It starts, this verse, with something that sounds really difficult: loving your enemies, lending with no expectation of return. That doesn’t sound right to us, does it? These things don’t come naturally.
Actually what we want for our enemies is revenge, naturally speaking. But that’s not for us to have, is it? Vengeance is God’s. So we’re called to a higher standard. We’re not called to be doormats, and we are certainly not called to abandon righteousness and justice. Jesus was clear on that. But loving our enemies, seeking their good, lending, knowing that you may not get anything back, this is the way that Jesus operated.
And we can do it cheerfully because we know we have this promise. Our reward will be great. So actually it’s a small thing to set aside our own feelings and desires, because it’s worth it.
And not only will we have this great reward, but we’ll be sons and daughters of God himself. We are adopted by the Creator of the universe. And this is a person with whom we want to have a great relationship because he’s kind to the ungrateful and the evil.
And in case you were wondering, that’s you and me. We’ve been ungrateful and evil. We continue in our sin sometimes. But though we are faithless, he remains faithful. He is kind to us. He rewards us and he makes us his children.
