TODAY’S SCRIPTURE
“You have heard that it was said, ’Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Matthew 5:43-44
Read: Matthew 5:43-48
Listen: Matthew 5
TODAY’S MESSAGE
The RE:THINK series is about Jesus’s call to rethink what it means to be good in the Sermon on the Mount. This week, he challenges his audience to rethink love. He isn’t talking about an emotional love that depends on one’s feelings. He describes a different type of love, one that costs something. Jesus tells them to rethink who deserves their love by telling them that they should love their enemy and those who persecute them. In short this means, be kind, warm and generous even to those who are not kind, warm or generous back.
Jesus’s love challenge falls right in line with the character of God revealed in the Old Testament. In fact, there is a section of Scripture that tells people not to turn a blind eye when they see their enemy’s ox or donkey that had wandered off. Instead, they were supposed to return it (Exodus 23:4-5). Jesus seems to be expounding on this idea. Pastor Jeff told us this weekend that when Jesus says to love your enemies, it has less to do with how you feel and more to do with how you behave.
Loving one’s enemy is just as difficult today as it was back then. Maybe our challenge is when our not-so-nice co-worker (who is never willing to help) asks for our assistance. Perhaps it is seeing the parent whose kid bullies ours or the family member who always tears us down. It might be speaking well of that person who is not doing the same. In these difficult encounters, Jesus challenges us to be kind to them.
IN YOUR CHAIR TIME TODAY
Memorize Matthew 5:44. May these words be on our minds this week and remind us to love even those we don’t feel like loving.
NEW TESTAMENT READING PLAN
Join us this year as we read through the New Testament.
Today’s reading is Romans 9.
