Love—a word we hear ALL THE TIME. We see it in movies, books, pictures, even people. Love is something that bonds us together. It can encourage and strengthen us when we are weak. It can comfort us in times when we are hurting. It can motivate us to do better in our lives. Love is such a powerful thing, though we seldom seem to recognize the might it really has. While we all know and long to receive love, I would argue we can sometimes struggle with GIVING love in our lives.
This certainly is not a new thing. People all throughout history have struggled with giving love the way that they should. Jesus even addresses this issue in the Sermon on the Mount. In this sermon, all about what true righteousness looks like and calling out the error of the religious leaders, Jesus spends a good deal of time focusing on the subject of love. He states, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven…” (Matthew 5:43-45). Reading these words is challenging, isn’t it? It’s easy to love the people who love us in return, but loving our ENEMIES? That’s a far greater challenge.
The Greek word for “enemies” here is actually a word that means “someone who is hostile” toward you. Are these types of people easy to love? Certainly not. And yet, Jesus’ words are clear—“love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Why does Jesus tell us to love these people who have hurt us and are continually against us? The answer is really quite simple: He is challenging us to work toward having a PERFECT LOVE. As He continues in the following few verses of Matthew 5, He elaborates further on His challenge to have a better love: “For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (5:46-47)
We love people, don’t we? Everyone loves someone! That’s precisely the point that Jesus is making here. Even the people who were the scum of the earth in Jewish eyes showed love toward people. Jesus is not just giving His audience a challenge to love, but to be different from the rest of the world in how we love. Note that He says that we “are to be perfect, as [our] heavenly Father is perfect.” In the context here, this has to be referring to love! As those striving to live righteously in God’s Kingdom, we must take on the same type of love that He exhibits. Our God has set the highest standard for love in every way. He sent His own Son to this earth to die for people He knew would reject Him. Jesus, in every aspect of His life, was working to exemplify the love that we should have in our lives.
The challenge, as stated before, is not just to love. Everyone can do that to some capacity. Jesus’ challenge is to love better, to be different in our love. Do we love our enemies? We should! Do we show the type of love to others that the Lord has shown to us? We need to. As Christians, one of the qualities that should stand out most among us is our love for one another, love for God, and love toward the lost. The love we have is a powerful thing. The question is, what will we choose to do with it? Let’s all listen to the challenge of Jesus and work to “be perfect, as [our] heavenly Father is perfect” in our love!
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