HOW ARE WE TO LOVE ONE ANOTHER?
            Matthew 5:43-48

I think we would all be in agreement that one of the key principles missing from society today is that of genuine love for one another.  Our expressions of love flow more from the selfishness that lurks within the recesses of our hearts.  We love to get loved in return.

But, Jesus commands us in these closing verses of Matthew 5, to love our enemies as well as our neighbors.  How are we to do that?  First, we can love him with our deeds, our actions.  Remember these words of Jesus, found in Luke 6:  But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you….But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men  (Luke 6:27, 35).  Friends, true love is practical, humble, sacrificial service to others.  It is following the example of Jesus as He stripped Himself of His robe and girded on the apron of a servant and washed His disciples feet there in the upper room.  True love serves others through deeds.

True love also serves others through prayer.  In verse 44 of our text, Jesus commands us to pray for those who persecute us.  We are to pray for them, not for what they have done, but for whom they are.  They might be sinners who need to know the Savior.  They might be believers with whom we need to be reconciled. 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German pastor who was executed by the Nazis during World War II.  In his book, titled The Cost of Discipleship, he wrote the following powerful words.  As you listen to them, I remind you that he was in a German prison camp awaiting death. 

Through the medium of prayer we go to our enemy, stand by his side, and plead for him to God….This commandment that we should love our enemies and forgo revenge, will grow even more urgent in the holy struggle which lies before us (Nazi Germany)….The Christians will be hounded from place to place, subjected to physical assault, maltreatment, and death of every kind.  Soon the time will come when we shall pray….  It will be a prayer of earnest love for these very sons of perdition who stand around and gaze at us with eyes aflame with hatred, and who have perhaps already raised their hands to kill us.

Jesus states that such praying shows the world that we are sons of God because we are reflecting the kind of love that God has shown.  And it is this type of love that the world needs to see today through your life and mine.

Father, I would pray today on behalf of all who listen to the Village Line, that You would fill our hearts with Your love.  Help us to love others today as You already love them.  Help us to serve others today because of that love, even as You have served us through Your love.  May others come to know You because of Your love shining through us.  We pray this in the name of the one who loved us so very much that He came and died for us.  Amen.

 

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