Proclamation:
“But
I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you
may be the children of your Father in heaven…” Matthew 5:44-45 (NIV)
Explanation:
These
are the words of Jesus, The Christ, which He spoke to His disciples and to the
surrounding crowd during His Sermon on The Mount. His point was that the children of God must
be better than the children of the world.
The unsaved worldly people love those who love them so there is nothing
special about doing that. (Matthew 5:46)
The children of God should take love to a higher level and also love
those who do not love them. (Matthew 5:48)
Application:
Sometimes being a Christian is not easy to do. It is easy to love the people that love us. However, as Christians, we are challenged to
love those people that do not love us.
We are to love, bless, do good to and pray for the people that we would
normally hate, curse, want to get even with, and want bad things to happen to. God's way for us to treat people is not the
way we would normally behave. We are not
to treat people badly because they treated us that way. (Romans 12:17) We are to overcome evil with good. (Romans
12:21) By treating our haters with love
we are, in fact, heaping burning coals upon their heads. (Romans 12:20) Vengeance belongs to The Lord God and He will
repay our enemies. (Romans 12:19) Maybe
this is what is meant by "killing them with kindness". We are to apply the "golden rule"
to all people. We are to do unto others
as we would have them to do unto us. (Matthew 7:12) We are to treat people like we would like to
be treated, not as they treat us. Again
I say, sometimes being a Christian is not easy, but it's well worth it. As Christians, we should live and love by a
higher standard.
