Village Schools of the Bible

WHAT THE WORLD REALLY NEEDS IS LOVE
Matthew 5:43-48

A few years ago a song was made very popular by a young lady named Dionne Warwick. The words of the song stated that the great need of the world was for love, sweet love, because it was the only thing that there was just too little of. As we reach the closing verses of this fifth chapter of Matthew, Jesus reminds us, not only of love, but of the power of the right type of love. Dr. James Montgomery Boice, writes concerning these verses: These verses carry the core of Christian ethics up to anchor it in the character of God, for they teach that the Christian is to love others, not as a man loves his friends, but as God loves.

Jesus states categorically that we are to love our enemies as well as our friends. This was rooted in several Old Testament passages, including Proverbs 25:21 which reads: If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. Other texts include Deuteronomy 22:1-4 and Exodus 23:4-5.

However, by the time of Jesus, the Jewish teachers taught that love was to be reserved for those you got along with. You were to hate those with whom you could not get along. They had, in essence, added the opportunity of hating your enemy to the Law.

Friends, there is a great difference between liking someone and loving them. To like someone is to have an emotional feeling toward them. Because we cannot entirely control our feelings, it is not always possible to like everyone. But to love someone is a matter of the will. Because it is a matter of the will, it is always possible to love everyone. Please listen carefully to the following words from the pen of C.S. Lewis, one of the great Christian statesmen from the last century:

The rule for all of us is perfectly simple. Do not waste your time bothering whether you “love” your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him less…. The difference between a Christian and a worldly man is not that the worldly man has only affections or “likings” and the Christian has only “charity.” The worldly man treats certain people kindly because he “likes” them; the Christian, trying to treat every one kindly, find himself liking more and more people as he goes on – including people he could not even have imagined himself liking at the first.

Friends, I realize that it is very difficult to love someone we don’t necessarily like. I am not sure that Jesus liked those who were putting Him to death, but we do know that He loved them and forgave them. I know that I cannot love people through my own efforts. I can only love them through Christ. So, daily I ask God to help me to love people even as He loves them.

Father, I would pray that You would help each of us to love not only our neighbors but our enemies even as You do. Lord, this is not easy to do. And we confess that we need Your help in order for this loving to take place. Give us the grace to love the unlovely. For it is in Christ’s name that we pray. Amen.

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