Easy To Read, Hard To Follow
October 8, 2010
Lately I have been looking again at some of the more radical words of Jesus. Words that have become too easy to read, and too easy to overlook. Words like, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Or words like if anyone would be first, he must be last of all and a servant of all. In Church words like this roll like water off a ducks back, but if you stop a moment and think of what these simple phrases require in our cultural context, it is absolutely earth shattering.
Think about it. Think about the one who grates you the most, the one who drives you around the bend the quickest, the one who at the very thought brings you anger, frustration and provokes in you literally a physical response. If you are like me it isn’t that hard and it doesn’t take that long to think of that person. Now think of loving that person. Remember love is a choice not a feeling. What would it look like for you to love that person? Initially the thought is repulsive isn’t it? But what difference would it make?
Is it possible that it would make all the difference in the world? Maybe just maybe loving your enemy, serving your enemy, not jockeying for first place, but letting them be first would change everything. Perhaps it wouldn’t change the circumstances, but maybe it would change your heart. It is reasonable to think that even if you started to serve your enemy and love your enemy, that they would think they had won, that you had seen it there way, and maybe they would even get worse. But maybe by loving them you would be set free.
When you have an enemy, to some degree they own you. I mean you knew who it was right away didn’t you. The thought of enemy and that persons face caused a reaction in you without them even being in the room didn’t it. No matter how you try the dream of their demise it is only ever a dream, because they are still there. In the world we live in, the only way to be free from our enemies is to see them obliterated. As a result we pray they move, or get sick, or are hit by a bus. Whatever it takes to take them out of the picture. But what if the world is wrong? What if that is actually the wrong way to get rid of an enemy, I mean has it worked yet?
What if Jesus is right? What if He knows what He is talking about? What if He has actually done it and can prove it to you? Well He is, He does, and He has. Romans tells us, For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. (Romans 5:6-11 ESV). We were enemies of God, and yet so loved by Jesus that He died for us. He loved His enemies, and because He did, we have life in Christ! Amazing.
Why not try it? Love your enemy as Christ loved you. Lay down your life for them in faith following Jesus, and maybe just maybe you will find you have been set free. What have you got to lose? The world’s way doesn’t work. Jesus knows, because Jesus has done it, follow Him.
