Love Your Neighbor 1

Matthew 5:43-48

On the first Friday night of the football season our two children went with the school band and ate a meal together with the band from a rival school. Our son came home and declared with sarcasm – “It was a wonderful time of bonding. They ate on their side of the room and we ate on our side.”

It isn’t always easy to be warm and friendly to strangers. Sometimes it is even hard to be nice to people we know. The separation experienced at the dinner is nothing new. We have even attended church gatherings and encountered the same thing. People prefer to be with those they like and are familiar with.

This sense of animosity becomes even stronger when we deal with enemies, people we dislike – even hate – because of offenses and acts of aggression. It is a natural feeling to prefer your own culture over that of another.

Yet Jesus has some things to say about that. What are we supposed to do with our enemies? Why should we do that? What does Jesus point out about God’s attitude toward all people? What comparisons does he make?

One of the foundations of our faith is love. We are to love God. We are to love one another. We are to express God’s love to other people, especially those in need. And if this wasn’t hard enough Jesus’ comment about our attitude toward our enemies seems impossible.

This is not a natural attitude to have. It doesn’t come easily and requires some work, some deliberate act of our will to overcome the anger and dislike we have for certain people. But that is part of Christianity. There is no getting around this command. There is no “but” involved in what Jesus says. It is part of our growth in faith to be able to love our enemies. It is a step toward the perfection Jesus wants of us.

If we will grow to be better Christians, if we will move toward greatness as a church, we must learn to love all people no matter what our instinctive reaction might be. Having love for foreign people, especially those who have made war against our nation and our people, is a hard challenge to live up to. Yet we are called to do this.

We may think that we will never be able to truly love our enemies when it comes to those who are enemies of our nation and culture, but with God all things are possible. We may simply need to understand other people better.

DAILY CHALLENGE: Pray that God will help you understand other people better.