Friday, October 2, 2020

PT-2 "Love Your Enemies" (Matt. 5:44a)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/2/2020 9:50 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                  Focus:  PT-2 “Love Your Enemies”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Matthew 5:44a

 

            Message of the verse:  44 "But I say to you, love your enemies,”

 

            I want to begin this SD today with a quote from John MacArthur as he writes about the Greek Word (ego…lego).  But here, as in each preceding instance in the sermon (vv. 22, 28, 32, 34, 39) the emphatic form (ego…lego) gives not only grammatical but theological emphasis.  In placing what He said above what tradition said, He placed His word on a par with Scripture—as His hearers well understood.  Jesus not only placed emphasis on what was said but on who said it.  It was not just that His teaching was the standard of truth, but that He Himself was the standard of truth.  ‘Your great rabbis, scribes, and scholars have taught you to love only those of your own preference and to hate your enemies,’ Jesus was saying.  ‘But by My own authority, I declare that they are false teachers and have perverted God’s revealed truth.  The divine truth is My truth, which is that ‘you shall love your enemies.’”

 

            In our study we have stated that the Old Testament concept of neighbor included even personal enemies.  Jesus expands this in the parable of the Good Samaritan. Now we may miss one of the points of that parable, as we may only think that the parable answered the lawyer’s question “who is my neighbor.”  It does that but it also shows that God’s requirement is for us to be neighbors to anyone who needs our help.  The parable is found in Luke 10:29 (see also 36-37).  “29 But wishing to justify himself, he said to Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?’”  “36 “Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers’ hands?" 37 And he said, "The one who showed mercy toward him." Then Jesus said to him, "Go and do the same.’”

 

            I suppose that many of us have our “enfasses on the wrong salyable” (emphasis on the wrong syllable) when it comes to how we love as we may love others for motives that may not be the best all of the time.  One may love their spouse because they are beautiful or in the case of men attractive, and that is okay, but it is better to love them because of who they are and what they do.  There are other examples but as MacArthur writes “true love is need-oriented.  The Good Samaritan demonstrated great love, because he sacrificed his own convenience, safety, and resources to meet another’s desperate need.”

 

            I am sure that we have talked about the four different Greek words for love:  “Philia is brotherly love and the love of friendship; storge is the love of family; and eros is desiring, romantic, sexual love.  But the ‘love’ of which Jesus speaks here, and which is most spoken of in the New Testament, is agape, the love that seeks and works to meet another’s highest welfare.”

 

            Agape love may involve emotion but it must involve action.  In Paul’s beautiful and powerful treatise of love in 1 Corinthians 13, all fifteen of the characteristics of love are given in verb form.  Obviously love must involve attitude, because, like every form of righteousness, it begins in the heart.  But it is best described and best testified by what it does.

            “Above all agape love is the love that God is, that God demonstrates, and that God gives (1 John 4:7-10).  ‘The love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us….[and] God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us’ (Rom. 5:5,8).  Because of His love, we can love, and ‘if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us’ (1 John 4:11-12).

 

            Lord willing we will continue to look at this very heavy and important subject in our next SD.

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I desire to do things the Lord’s way, to love in the Lord’s way of loving.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Trust the Lord to help me to live a life that is pleasing to Him.

 

10/2/2020 10:19 AM

           

 

           

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