Gospel and loving our enemies

       As we continue to look at how knowing, grasping, and cherishing the Gospel helps us to live out the life Jesus calls us to live we are going to look at the command to love our enemies.  Matthew 5:43-44, "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbors and hate your enemy.'  But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you."  We are commanded by Jesus to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.  That kind of love is not our natural response.  We don't naturally love our enemies.  We don't naturally pray for those who persecute us, but that is what Jesus is calling His followers to do.  

       How does knowing, grasping, and cherishing the Gospel help us to love our enemies?  The Gospel tells us that because of our sin we are God's enemies.  Romans 5:10, "For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of Son, much more, now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by his life."  Do you see what Paul is saying here?  He is talking to Christians and reminding them that before they were reconciled to God they were enemies of God.  That doesn't get talked about a lot today.  It doesn't feel very good to be told that unless we have put our faith in Jesus we are actually enemies of God.  However, that is what the Gospel proclaims. It proclaims that we who were once enemies have been reconciled to God by Jesus and that is GOOD news!  We like to think that before Jesus we were pretty good people, but that is not what the Bible says.  The Bible says that we were enemies with God and anyone who is an enemy of the God of the universe is not a pretty good person.  That is a person who is in desperate need to be restored and reconciled to God and that is exactly what Jesus did when He took the punishment, death, and wrath upon Himself that you and I deserved because we were the ones who were God's enemies, not Jesus.  

       Friend, that is the Gospel and that is indeed God news.  Do you see how this connects to loving our enemies?  The Gospel shows us how the God of the universe was able to love and reconcile us while we were His enemies and that should be our motivation for loving our enemies.  Loving our enemies is doing exactly what God did for us.  The more we realize the desperate state that we were in before Jesus the more willing we will be to offer that same kind of love, grace, and mercy to others that God offered to us.  You don't have the capacity to love this way in and of yourself but that is exactly why God gave us the Holy Spirit so that we would have God's love dwelling within to give to others.  Knowing, grasping, and cherishing the Gospel helps us to love our enemies.