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You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. (Matthew 5:43-45)Scripture:
Matthew 5:43-48Having difficulty with dealing with people lately? Is it your co-worker? Neighbor? Business partners? Friends? Family?
Everyday, may it be in our workplace, on your way to the office, or our loved ones, we always seem to have to deal with people whom we do not really want to deal with. It may be because they have offended you in some way before, or they have done something which has caused you a great deal of pain, or plainly, you just do not like them.
Like it or not, God may be using these “difficult” people to teach us about something about how much He loves us.
Yes, we know God loves us but not all of us knows how much He loves us that we tend to have boundaries when it comes to these difficult people.
Background:
During Jesus’ sermon at the mount, Jesus left us with specific instructions about every possible struggle that we will encounter in this life, including loving difficult people and our enemies.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 and pray for those who persecute you,
45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
What are enemies? Isn’t it that these are the people who seek to harm us? Then we should be wary of these people in our lives.
During Jesus’ time, enemies could mean the Romans, who brought the Jews to slavery, or the Pharisees, who would watch every move that Jesus’ made so that they can find a way to completely get rid Him.
However, not all of us are unlucky enough to have such opposition in our walk with God. Sometimes, these people do not necessarily mean opposition to us. Most of them are people who are close to our hearts, which makes the burden seem a little bit heavier than it should seem (ex. Father who is an alcoholic, a brother who has drug addiction, a dysfunctional family, a co-worker who is not to be trusted, a cheating partner, etc.).
Common human response is to take these people out of our lives so that we could be at peace. But again, common human responses are not the best solutions to our problems. Some of these solutions are just short-term fixes, others make it worse.
When Jesus said “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”, He meant the best, long-term solution to any relationship with any difficult person that we encounter in our lives. He tells us to love them because He loves them in the same way that He loves us.
We are called Children of God because God made us experience His Fatherly love but then we would not completely fulfill His purpose when we could not extend this kind of love to those people who have great need for it.
46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
47 And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?
In verses 46-47, Jesus emphasizes that there is nothing supernatural in loving only those who love us back. It is nothing compared to the love that Jesus meant in His sermon.
Furthermore, Jesus impresses that we are no different from the people we consider as “evil” and “unjust” if we can’t see them in the same light as Jesus did.
48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
How? What to do? How to be perfect?
Good news. This is humanly impossible, and when we say humanly impossible. we will not be able to love our enemies with our own capacity to love.
How will God do these through us?
Be Loved by God
To love a difficult person needs a love that has a greater capacity to love than our own capacity to love people. It is just not deep enough of a love to be able to see past the difficulties in loving our enemies. That kind of love is only available from God. Only God can love us unconditionally that He was more than willing to send His only Son, Jesus, to be human and to be crucified for our sins, even while we were still sinners (Romans 5:8).Let God love that person through us
It is easier said than done but again, this is humanly impossible. Only through God and with God at the helm will this be possible. Pray for that person and pray also for God to prepare our heart that it will have a bigger room for God, because the bigger the room God has in our hearts, the bigger the room will there be for those difficult persons.You see, this is why it is very important that God is in every relationship that we have.
Be patient for that person to be changed by God. Always remember that we have no part in changing that person. That is God’s part. Be there to witness it.
When it becomes more difficult, remember God did it first
They say you never truly love a person, until you can love that person through the worst of difficult situations. God did it first when Jesus went down from Heaven, became human like us but was sinless and unblemished, and was crucified together with our sins.You see, Jesus had to go through the worst of punishments for the sins He didn’t commit. He was blameless. It was our sins, past and future sins alike, that crucified Him.
We were once difficult persons ourselves, sometimes even worse than the person we are struggling to love, but that did not stop Jesus from facing a terrible and unjust death and from overcoming death itself. He did it all just to give us a way back to His presence and to be loved by Him eternally.
Photo by: Zee Gabales
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