“If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even
sinners love those who love them. If you do what is good to those who are good
to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. And if you lend to
those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners
lend to sinners to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do what is good,
and lend, expecting nothing in return.”
Love your enemies. It is a sobering passage, to say the least. If
I’m honest, it does more than step on my toes a little – it calls me
out, revealing that much of what I call “love” is nothing more than
self-interest. But that’s a topic for another time. Right now, I want
to jump down a few verses to what I believe is a key to understanding what is
often missed about this passage – or, at least what I missed for a
long time.
After summing up what it looks like to love your enemies, Jesus
tells us what it would mean if we were to live out such love:
“Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most
High. For He is gracious to the ungrateful and evil. Be merciful,
just as your Father also is merciful.”
This may sound obvious, but Jesus is telling us that he wants
us to love like this because this is exactly how God the
Father loves. When we love like this we are living as God’s children
because that is how he loves. Jesus came to show us what the Father is really
like, to correct our misguided notions about him. I think this is one of
those moments.
When I come to this passage, I usually read it, feel depressed
about the lousy quality of my love, and determine to try harder. I
focus exclusively on what it says about how I love or don’t
love. What I rarely do is focus on what this says about how God
loves. And I rarely think about whether or not I am interacting with
God as he presents himself. Instead, I tend
to treat God as if he plays by our rules.
How often do we live as if God is the embodiment of everything this
passage says is not love?
- As if God only loves those who love him?
- As if God is only good to those who are good to him?
- As if God only gives to us when he expects us to do something for him in return?
Even sinners do this, and yet too often we treat God as if his love is no better. Listen to the subtle implications of conversations you hear around you (and inside your own mind) and tell me this isn’t true.
We tend to believe that if we do the things God likes, he will do
nice things for us, but if we do the things God doesn’t like, then he will do
bad things to us. I know it seems that way sometimes. That’s why we
try to bargain with God. That’s why, too often, we try to impress God with
our goodness. That’s why we hide from him when we’ve sinned.
Now don’t get me wrong – there are blessings for living in
tune with God, and there are consequences for disconnecting ourselves
from him, but the point is this: yes, God blesses the faithful, but,
astonishingly, God also blesses the unfaithful!
In Matthew’s version of this passage, Jesus says that
God causes the sun to shine and the rain to fall, not
just to benefit the good, but the evil as well. It is as if God can’t
contain himself! He is so full of love for us – all of us – that he just
keeps pouring out good things all around us, knowing that most won’t even lift
their heads to thank the source from which their blessings come. What
a gift to God, then, to thank him for his gifts! But even if we don’t, that
doesn’t change his love – it just keeps overflowing like the sun spilling
over the horizon, like the rain bursting from the sky onto parched and thirsty
ground.
He just gives, and gives, and gives…
And his giving only fills him with more to give!
What if I lived like that?
What if I lived as if God really loves me like that?
I wonder if all this trying to be better would be
replaced with streams of living water flowing – overflowing – from within. I
wonder if I would love because he first loved me.
1 comments:
I nominated you for the 2014 Liebster Award, check it out here:
http://joyfaithanddirt.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-liebster-award-2014.html
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