February 12, 2024 … Love Our Enemies! … Really?!

February 12, 2024 … Love Our Enemies! … Really?!   

Devotional Song: ... GO TO THIS LINK ...   Please take the time to take in this song with lyrics from Paul Demer singing … Love For Enemies …  poignantly, and yet powerfully, singing of how we Christians must ALWAYS be willing to reach out, … counter intuitively, …  and share God’s love with everyone, … yes, … even with our enemies. 

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Highlight Passage: … Matthew 5:44 [NLT] … 

44 But I say, love your enemies!  Pray for those who persecute you!             

…Jesus calls His followers to break with tradition which calls on God’s people to hate and revile their enemies; … but rather to love and pray for them instead.    

Highlight Passage (in context) … Matthew 5:43-48 … USE THIS LINK … 

… In His “Sermon on the Mount,” Jesus teaches that God’s Law actually calls on God’s chosen to love, not hate, their (our) enemies.  

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Reference Passage: … Leviticus 19:18 [NLT] …  

18 “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against a fellow Israelite, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.  

… God commands His chosen people to love their (our) neighbors as they (we) love themselves (ourselves).   

Reference Passage: …Proverbs 25:21-22 [NLT] …   USE THIS LINK … 

… Solomon speaks of God rewarding those who reach out with God’s love to help their (our) enemies.     

Reference Passage: … Luke 6:27-28 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …  

… Luke’s account of Jesus teaching His followers to show God’s love to all, … yes, even to our enemies.   

       

Reference Passage: … 1Peter 3:9 [NLT] …   

9 Don’t repay evil for evil. Don’t retaliate with insults when people insult you. Instead, pay them back with a blessing. That is what God has called you to do, and he will grant you his blessing.  

…The Apostle Peter teaches of sharing God’s love with those who persecute His people, and to refrain from insulting or harming them (us)   

Reference Passage: … 1John 4:7 [NLT] …   

7 Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God.   

…The Apostle John teaches that sharing God’s love with ALL of God’s people is God’s command to His people.       

My Devotional Journal: Today’s Our Daily Bread  Author , Amy Boucher Pye -  AT THIS LINK -  writes of Abraham Lincoln being challenged by a woman during the Civil War as to how he could proclaim to call those in the South our “friends,”  … to which Lincoln replied, ”Madam, do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”  And then over 100 years later, Martin Luther King, picked up on Lincoln’s teaching by saying, … ”This is the power of redemptive love.”

When we read of God’s call for us to love our enemies, … our human nature rebels and likely would say, “REALLY?!” Actually, revenge is our natural cry or choice, isn’t it?  But today’s ODB entry and the Scriptures shared above teach what God commands of His people; and that is to  choose, when it comes to reacting to our enemies and their oppression, we … who call ourselves, “Christian,” are to love and pray for everyone, … yes, even our enemies.  But in the words and teaching of Jesus and other Authors of God’s word (See Scriptures shared above), we must ask ourselves today, … are we willing to reach out and pray for … and to offer God’s love…  to those who oppress and persecute us?  Oh, how I pray we are!! 

           

My THANKFULNESS: ... Oh, Abba Father, thank You, King Jesus, … for giving me Your love share with those who come against me.             

My Prayer Today: Oh Abba Father, ... King Jesus, ... . I pray. again today, that all reading here will join me, … to pray, even today, Lord, for those who do wrong to us.       Amen  

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Blogger Note:  Everyday during this year, my daily devotional blogs are influenced by the reading and study of the online devotional blog entitled “Our Daily Bread,” distributed online via email by RBC Ministries.  If you GO TO THIS LINK on the date of my blog, you can read/study the ODB blogs; or you can subscribe to the blog via email at that site.