Today’s Encouragement is Luke 6:35 [Jesus said,] “But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.”
He is kind to the ungrateful and wicked –
We might think, “Yes, we know we’re supposed to love our enemies, that’s one of those impossible commandments God gives us, right? One that shows us how much we need grace and forgiveness… but no one can really do that!”
My friends, Jesus wasn’t playing word games, He was revealing the truth of how God’s Kingdom works… something completely foreign to the thinking of this world…. Remember the Highest Commandments, Love God and Love others.
Jesus is revealing to us the principles of God’s Kingdom… Love is preeminent, It is supreme…. even love for enemies! Loving those who love us, who have lovable characteristics, that’s easy, everyone does that, even generally evil people! No, my friends, we’re called to love those who hate us, who use us, who lie to us, to talk about us behind our backs, who actively try to harm us! Jesus had people who fell into this category, many hated him and wanted to… and ultimately succeeded, kill Him. We’re in good company when others hate us…. Jesus was hated too.
How do we respond? God isn’t considering the hate of the haters. He is considering us, His children… will we choose to love those who hate us? Will we do good to them, even when they do evil to us? Will we obey Him, will we choose His way, or our way, the worlds way… and bite them back… tell others how badly they are treating us?
Friends we do have a choice… So, which will you choose?
I pray Lord, for anyone going through this type of trial, that they will choose to honor You by loving those who are unloving. “For You are kind to the ungrateful and wicked.” Please help us to do the same, to love those who hate us.
Unloveable
Plumb
Today’s Encouragement 
Just may be the hardest challenge of all
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So true. It’s interesting that Jesus doesn’t really acknowledge that… He just says ‘Do this’. It’s sorta similar to forgiving others, perhaps. We think “I can forgive some things but not the big things!”
We somehow think too that our forgiveness – let’s the offender off the hook. When it it setting us free instead. And I think loving our enemy does the same thing…. sets US free.
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So your saying if I don’t like someone because they are hateful to me it’s causing me harm ,, good point
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Yes but disliking I think is less than hate. Distrust is the same. I believe loving our enemy doesn’t mean we have to try to be best friends, or even associate with them, but to pray for them (which we can do if we choose not to hate them… and is also related to unforgiveness) and this gets us free from the ‘war’ with our ‘enemy’
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Having an enemy (other than satan of course) bonds is to them in a war… of words or thoughts etc. loving our enemy is the only way to become free of that war.
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