After a baby is born, family members often spend the next few months considering who the little one looks the most like. Is it Daddy? Is it Grandma, or someone else? Then as the baby grows older, the little boy or girl often strives to be like one of their parents. They want to run as fast as they do, catch as many fish, and throw a ball as far. As Christians, we too, should strive to be like our Heavenly Father. We should bear a resemblance to Him by our actions. Sometimes this might be difficult to do. Our Scripture today from the Gospel of Luke highlights one area which is especially difficult for most of us to be like the Lord God in our actions. Let’s look into this Scripture passage.
Our Gospel Scripture for this week contains a teaching that the Lord Jesus gave about the need for His followers to love their enemies, and to show forgiveness to all those who wrong us. It is a lesson in showing love and mercy to others. One part of being a loving and merciful person is showing forgiveness to others. That can often be very difficult to do, especially when Jesus speaks of loving your enemies, doing good to those who hate you, and blessing those who mistreat you (vs. 27-28). We might be able to do that with the neighbor who is just an irritating scoundrel. We can grit our teeth and be kind and forgiving to the person who is always cutting us off in traffic. But how about to those who are outright enemies and deliberately hurtful to us or our loved ones?
In this segment of Scripture, Jesus is talking about loving others who are deliberately unkind to us, people we don’t feel we can be loving towards. This kind of love transcends our feelings and requires deliberate actions of kindness and forgiveness. This is where we need to show the family resemblance to the Lord Jesus. He loved us, even in our sins, to die on the cross for us, and forgives all who come to Him for salvation, and He continues to forgive all of our ongoing sins. Jesus gives us the “Golden Rule” here to be a pattern of how we are to treat others (vs. 31). This should be a cornerstone of our Christian conduct.
Some might question just how far the “turning the other cheek” should go (vs. 29-30). God doesn’t want us to just stand there and let someone physically beat or abuse us. What He wants, however, is that we not repay the evil done to us with more evil actions towards our abusers. Instead we are to repay the evil with blessings and prayers for them.
As Jesus continues His teaching, He contrasts the way the world loves others with that of what God tells us to do (vs. 32-36). The world, the unsaved, have no problem with loving and being kind to those who act kind and loving back to them. That’s only natural. However, as believers we have the Holy Spirit, and can act supernaturally by loving those who are our enemies and doing good to everyone, the good and the bad alike. He instructs us to show mercy and compassion even to the ungrateful and wicked. This type of behavior gives evidence of our true relationship with the Lord.
For those who love their enemies, there is a reward in heaven, and we will be called sons of the Most High (vs. 35). This should be like a family resemblance, where we look like our Heavenly Father, where we look and act like the Lord Jesus does. To be like God means to be kind and merciful, even to the wicked and ungrateful. If we want to receive mercy from God, and in all honesty we all surely need His mercy, then we need to show mercy to others (vs. 36).
Jesus concludes this portion of Scripture by telling us that the measure that we use to give out to others in mercy, forgiveness, or condemnation, is the same measure that will be used to give us the same (vs. 37-38). He urges us to be generous in our forgiveness and grace. In order to do that, we will need to rely on God’s strength to love, forgive, and show mercy to those who have treated us wrong. We are to reflect Jesus in our relationships, even when it is difficult, and depend fully on His grace.
In conclusion, God knows our situation. He knows everything that we have gone through and what others may have done to us. Yet He has called us to forgive, no matter the circumstances. No one is perfect, including each of us. Everyone needs to be forgiven. Knowing that, Jesus urges us to not stand in the way of our own relationship with God by denying forgiveness to someone else.
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