<\/p>\n
\nMatthew 5:43 \u201cYou have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.\u2019 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. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/span>Luke 6:35<\/b><\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/b>\u00a0\u00a0But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/span>Psalms 145:9<\/b><\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/b>\u00a0\u00a0The LORD is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Jesus understood we\u00a0will<\/i>\u00a0have enemies, yet we are to respond to them in love, trusting that God will protect our cause in the best way possible. It is not in our human nature to have a positive \u201clove\u201d towards an enemy, who by word or actions, does us hurtful or harmful things.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
\u201cI believe that he says this: \u2018This is the day of free grace; this is the time of mercy.\u2019 The hour for judgment is not yet, when he will separate between the good and the bad; when he will mount the judgment seat and award different portions to the righteous and to the wicked.\u201d (Spurgeon)<\/p>\n
This is an\u00a0example<\/i>\u00a0\u2013 that we also are to love our enemies and bless them if we can. In doing so, we show ourselves to be\u00a0sons of<\/b>\u00a0our\u00a0Father in heaven<\/b>. \u201cWe are made sons by regeneration, through faith in the Son; but we are called to make our calling and election sure \u2013 to approve and vindicate our right to that sacred name. We can only do this by showing in word and act that the divine life and principles inspire, encourage, and empower us.\u201d (Meyer)<\/p>\n
Remember, Jesus here taught the character of the citizens of His kingdom. We should expect that character to be different from the character seen in the world. There are many good reasons\u00a0why<\/i>\u00a0more should be expected from Christians than others:\u00a0\u201cThey claim to have something that others do not have; they claim to be renewed, repentant, and redeemed by Jesus Christ.\u00a0They do in fact have something that others do not have; they are in fact renewed, repentant, and redeemed by Jesus Christ.\u00a0They have a power that others do not have; they can do all things through Christ who strengthens them.\u00a0They have the Spirit of God dwelling within them.\u00a0They have a better future than others do.\u201d (Guzik)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Matthew 5:43 \u201cYou have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.\u2019 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. For he makes his sun rise on the … Continue reading “31.c. “For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?””<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5034,863,164,448,231,171,2369,539,3151,15550,1099,579,796,56,84,396,2016,5201,4523,108,15551,15549,15467,3608],"class_list":["post-135155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-prayers","tag-brothers","tag-enemy","tag-evil","tag-father","tag-gentiles","tag-good","tag-hate","tag-heard","tag-heavenly","tag-just-and-unjust","tag-kind","tag-lend","tag-lord","tag-love","tag-mercy","tag-neighbor","tag-perfect","tag-persecute","tag-rain","tag-reward","tag-sons-of-the-most-high","tag-sons-of-your-father","tag-tax-collectors","tag-ungrateful"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135155"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":135238,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135155\/revisions\/135238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}