Matthew 5:43-44 (NKJV) 43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you…
How do we this? This has got to be one of the hardest things to do.
Love our enemies, bless those who curse us, do good to those who hate us and PRAY for those who spitefully use and persecute us. Wow!
As I was reading this morning, and I saw this verse, I was like, “God, help us. We can’t do this without You. Because I know who I am and what my flesh is like.
I usually just run away from people who treat me badly.
I know how I am. And if someone does me wrong, well they’d better look for another friend, because I don’t go for it.
I just don’t like to be around people like this.
And one more thing; these types of people pull the worst out of me. So, I try to stay away; far away”.
In the scripture above, we are given clear-cut directions on how to love like God.
This does not come natural to us; it is not a normal fleshly behavior. As a matter of fact, our flesh would like it better if we could hate our enemy. Now that would be easy to do, right?!
The point here is that we need to learn to love like God. After all, we are His children and we need to emulate His ways.
We need to be like Papa in every way. And this will take a lot of letting Him mature us in the things we should do.
If we can learn to walk in this kind of love, what does the Word of God say about it?
Matthew 5:48 (NKJV) 48 Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.
This does not mean that we will be perfect and never sin. The perfect that the scripture is speaking of here is the way we should love others; the same way He loves us.
Even in very hard and difficult situations, even in their sin, this kind of loving others is God’s perfect love.
You see, it takes discipline to walk in this. It takes obedience to tame that fleshly desire that otherwise wants to lash out, call them names or argue our point.
It takes absolute Holy Spirit-led control over our emotions and attitude. It takes a huge change of heart.
That, my friend, will only happen if we submit our fleshly, hard heart to Him and let Him change it; let Him give us a new heart.
Ezekiel 36:26 (NKJV) 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
Amen.
Pastor Curt & Pastor Ellie
Seven Seas Ministries
P.O. Box 272
Bradford, RI 02808
401-315-0902
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