There are
times I struggle with the Lord’s command to love my enemies and my preferred
coping mechanism is to ignore and avoid enemies. While I know my husband loves
me, if he came to me and told me he loved my arch enemy I’m sure I’d be
taken aback and feel abandoned, betrayed and un-loved. And yet, that is exactly
what God does…He loves my enemies! Israel had a hardening until the full number
of the Gentiles had come in. Paul wrote, “As far as the gospel is concerned,
they are enemies on your account; but as far as election is concerned, they are
loved on account of the patriarchs, for God’s gifts and his
call are irrevocable” (Ro 11:28-29 NIV).
1 comment:
Gail;
-----Our difficulty in loving our enemies indicates our misunderstanding of love. We continue thinking love is an affectionate emotion towards someone and a desire to be around them because they make us feel good. That’s all backwards.
-----I Corinthians 13:4-7 shows us that love is attitudes of our own towards others, not affections and feelings we have about others. Nowhere does it suggest love is anything others cause in either our own hearts or minds. And key to its description of love is that love does not rejoice at wrong; it rejoices in the right. Maybe we don’t actually desire to be around our enemies. Nor should we want our enemies to get what they want. We shouldn’t even desire our own children to get what they want, or ourselves. If we love then we want everyone to get what is right for them to have. What we want and what is right for us are two different things. When we all get what’s right there is peace. Think about it. Righteousness is simply what is right. If we then rejoice in our enemies’ righteousness, we’ll surely be looking for they’re good side. Again, peace. Maybe this is a clue about why Paul told the Romans that the kingdom of heaven was righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.
-----Now that love is on the correct track, we can see why it does not insist on its own way. If I were God, maybe I could insist on my own way and be loving, because then my way would be right. But I am not. Nor am I even good. “Let God be true though all men are false.” (Rom 3:4) This is why love can not insist on its own way. Then whose way should it insist on? The easy answer is of course God’s way. But going there first develops trite knowledge. We want a bowl of big, fat, substantive knowledge. Certainly we are not going to insist on our enemy’s own way, or our enemy’s neighbor’s way, or our own neighbor’s way. We’re all men; we’re all false. We are going to insist on the way that is right. We’re back to the kingdom of heaven again. And we're all going to have to work out what's right together. Well. Uh. That's peaceful. Hmm. No wonder Jesus said pray this way, “…Thy kingdom come…”
-----But there’s more fat for this bone than just that. It isn’t only a variety of ways from which one must be chosen as the right one for love to insist. Since love’s way is righteousness, verse 5 is telling us that love does not insist on righteousness. Well that’s rather odd! I mean gee? OK. I guess I’m kind of glad God does not insist on His own way, at least not for now. Because, well, ok, ok, ok. We’re all false. Look at verse 4. Love is patient and kind. It understands that your enemy is human and therefore as nearly false as is your self (let’s not be too generous with the enemy.) Insisting a broken, bent creature be righteous breaks any hope for improvement. Yet hoping the enemy will go the righteous way, and believing that if I myself first go that way then maybe he will at least think about it gives me the ability to bear with his failures as much as I must bear with my own failures. Maybe that’s why we are to love others like we love ourselves?
-----The subtlety of Satan is surely seen in how badly tarnished our cultural understanding of love is. We’ve only had nearly six thousand years to get our concept of love straight, and it is yet twisted up like a pretzel. One last and simple reason we are to love our enemies: we are to love everyone. The kingdom of heaven is that substantive! And enemies are ones.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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