By R. Michel Lankford
“But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also. And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two. Give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow from you do not turn away. “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5:39–48, NKJV)
The Commands within This Passage
9. But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also. And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two. Matthew 5:39-41 (NKJV)10. Give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow from you do not turn away. Matthew 5:42 (NKJV)
11. But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, Matthew 5:44 (NKJV)
12. Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect. Matthew 5:48 (NKJV)
This is probably the most difficult set of commands in all of Biblical Christianity. It is also the one that completely distinguishes Biblical Christianity from the false religions in the world. Islam for example (which is the second most populous religion) commands the opposite of this and therefore cannot hold a candle to Jesus Christ, The Son of the Living God. You will not find a single command within biblical Christianity telling you to persecute, imprison or harm, let alone kill a nonbeliever. The same cannot be said for the Koran. What I love most about Jesus Christ is that He not only declared the commands of God, He not only taught about them, but He also exemplified them with all His actions.
"Greater love has no one than this that one lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13, NASB95)
Romans 5:8-9 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. (Romans 5:8-9 NASB)Messiah extended forgiveness and mercy to those enemies who hated Him. From the cross He said Father forgive them, because they do not fully understand what they are doing (See Luke 23:34). Jesus asked God His Heavenly Father to show compassion on His enemies, even at the moment while He was being tortured by them. You will not find such love and compassion exemplified in any other religious leader or religious text.
Anyone can love his friends. It requires no godly character to care or to love and do well to those who treat us well. Only those who are truly transformed by Yahweh, Yeshua and the Holy Spirit, can truly love his enemies, do good to those who hate them, bless those who curse them, and pray for those who abuse them, (Luke 6:27-28). Any unprincipled murderous savage can either verbally or physically kill his enemies with impunity. It takes absolutely zero godly character to do such a wicked thing. It's a sin as old as Cain and Abel. God's word already declared before the close of the first century, that such a person DOES NOT have eternal life within them (1 John 3:15). It's abundantly clear to anyone with open eyes and a willingness to see. Do not be deceived, and do not deceive yourself. The way that we treat the person whom we like the least is how we treat God and His Son the Messiah (Matthew 25:40).
Yeshua goes on to explain that Love is the character of Almighty God the Heavenly Father. God allows both the righteous and the unrighteous to receive some good from His hand because He is good. God who created the world allows both the righteous and the unrighteous to enjoy sunlight, to have their ground refreshed by rain, and so forth. In other words, God provides to a greater or lesser degree universally for all of his creation, whether we are good or evil. Yahweh does this because of His goodness and love. Jesus exemplified this on the cross; forgiving His tormentors, and giving yet one more demonstration that He truly is the Son of God.
Messiah goes on to make an incredible promise in this passage. It is one that we dare not ignore. He tells us that the way that we ourselves can become children of God is by allowing God to change our hearts and character so that we can love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, speak blessings and not curse those who revile us, and pray for those who abuse us; "So that you may become sons of your Father in Heaven (Matthew 5:45). This is the difference between the true religion sent by God and all of the others which are false.
Understanding Love: A Rough Sketch
I call this section a rough sketch, because trying to understand LOVE, is like trying to understand God, since God is love (1 John 4:8). We can understand certain aspects of God's love and character through Scripture reading, by actually doing the Scriptures, and so experiencing what God does in our lives through our obedience. We also get a glimpse of God's love whenever our relationships with other people work as God designed them, because we have successfully applied God's Scriptural principles. All of these are good ways of getting true and lasting glimpses of God Love and character. However, presently we can only partially understand. We only know, understand, and declare or prophesy in part. We will only more completely understand God's love and character when we are in His presence in Heaven (1 Corinthians 13:9-13).For the present, believers are given enough knowledge and insight into God's Love, character and His word to help us succeed, but none of us understand everything from beginning to end (Ecclesiastes 3:11). God has given believers and followers enough knowledge wisdom and understanding to successfully build our lives and relationships so that they are pleasing to God inasmuch as we properly apply His Scripture and promises (2 Peter 1:2-4; Hebrews 5:14; 2 Timothy 3:16-17), but none of us will completely understand it from beginning to end, until we are physically living in the fullness of God's Eternal Kingdom (1 Corinthians 13:12).
What Is Love?
One thing that I ask every up-and-coming disciple of our Lord Jesus Christ to remember is that in order to be effective as a disciple, we must first define every keyword and key concept according to how God himself defines it. We know that God expects us to love God with our entire being, and to love our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:34-40; Matthew 7:12; 1 Corinthians 13:4-8; Galatians 5:22-25). This of course brings is a natural question, what is love? More importantly, what is love as God himself defines it, because in the end only God's definition counts.Based on the knowledge that Yahweh Almighty God has provided us through the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit, there are some things of which we can be certain concerning love.
There are different and distinct types of love: In the original Greek (one of the original New Testament Biblical languages), there are different types of love.
I have given detailed biblical dictionary definitions for each of these Greek words for love in a previous blog entry, (http://discipleshipsuccess.blogspot.com/2011/02/what-is-love.html February 14, 2011), so I will not detail those again here for the sake of time and space. If you want detailed definitions from God's word about what love is and what love does, please view this earlier blog entry at your leisure.
According to the command, (Matthew 5:44), we are supposed to cooperate with God to the point where He transforms us so that the Biblical Love attributes will describe how we treat our enemies! No matter how you slice it that is a tall order. When we understand what God's real standards are, there is not a single one of us who can correctly say that we have arrived. Folks let's be honest, we don't even always treat our friends this well, let alone our enemies. If we respect God's standards, we know that we have a long way to grow!
Don't Be Dyslexic about Love
Most Christians tend to treat love backwards. They seem to be somewhat dyslexic in their approach. That is to say that in most cases people identify love as, 'Warm fuzzy feelings."According to biblical precepts, feelings almost never come first. Feeling good about something almost always appears last. First comes decisions and choices, second comes acting in a manner agreeable consistently with that Godly choice, and third comes the positive feelings or results. Most people wait for loving feelings to show up about someone or a situation before they choose to act lovingly. It's our human nature to put feelings first. Our new godly nature directs us to put our feelings last.
The truth is that true love is not a feeling. Love is a decision, followed by coinciding actions. The first truth about love is that we can decide how to respond to people and situations. We can choose to pursue responding to people and situations according to the 13 characteristics of love. No doubt, it is easier and a whole lot more fun to choose to act lovingly when our interactions with people and situations are more enjoyable, but we can choose to walk in the 13 characteristics of love whether we are enjoying a person or not. Love is a choice followed by a coinciding action. Did you notice the first characteristic of Godly love? It's patient, right? So when do I need to be patient with someone? Do I exercise my patience with someone when they're doing exactly what I want them to do, or do I really exercise patience with them when they are not doing what I want them to do? We can choose to be patient whether or not we feel good about it at the time. Most of the time I'll be practicing being patient with people when they are not doing what I would prefer they would do. Love is a decision which is followed through by a coinciding action. Feelings come later, and sometimes much later.
How Do I Grow and Love?
None of us are born living in this kind of love. It is not natural to the human being to be so unselfish, generous or forgiving, etc. It's a supernatural work of what I call C.W.O.G. it's a Cooperative Work of Grace. What that means is that in most cases, there is a part of our growth and development in Christ that God must do within us because we cannot do it for ourselves, but there is also various places where God will not do certain things or portions of His work within us unless we first "cooperate" with Him. That's how a relationship with God works. So what's the Cooperative work of love that we have to do?1. We must be born again and submit to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior (John 3:3, 7; Ezekiel 36:25-27). That is God’s Part.
2. We must recognize and appreciate what God's high standard for love is, and that we need God to produce His kind of love in us. That is my Part
3. We must ask and continue asking, seek and continue seeking, not and continue knocking in prayer until God produces His characteristics of love within us. If we do that, He guarantees to do it (Matthew 7:7-11). That’s my Part
4. We must purposely and intentionally practice interacting with one another this way. As often as possible we should be getting together with other believers. We should pray for one another and we should practice treating each other with these characteristics. We grow with practice. That’s My part.
5. We must honestly confess when we are falling short of Love and its characteristics (1 John 1:7-9). God promises to first forgive us, and then cleanse us from all and righteousness when we confess that we are coming short of His standards. Whenever we fall short, we confess and start aiming for the target of love all over again. That’s my part.
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