Loving Like God

       There is nothing more difficult than to truly love.  To love someone as God loves.  To love sacrificially.  To love selflessly.  To deny yourself and to give your life for another, there is nothing more difficult than this.  Yet, this is exactly what Jesus tells us to do, to love as God loves.

This kind of love is very different from the world’s idea of love.  Jesus said you have heard it said, “love your neighbor”, and the Mosaic law did state that very clearly in Leviticus 19:18.  But the law of God never stated that one should “hate his enemy”.  As a matter of fact, Leviticus 19:17 says, “you shall not hate your brother” and verse 18, “you shall not take vengeance.”  This additional statement of hating your enemy was an addition by the Pharisees.  Their rationalization went like this, “I am to love my neighbor, but if someone is not my neighbor than I have the right to consider him my enemy and therefore I can hate him.”  This is what the Jews said.  But now we find what Jesus said, “I say unto you.”  Jesus is once again going higher, deeper, fuller into the meaning of the Scripture.  Our Lord is saying that we must love as God loves.  

The world offers a very different definition of love.  They tell us that love is something you feel, fall into, or fall out of.  They say that love is what you should give only if it is first given to you.  And if you don’t feel loved than you have every right to withhold love from others.  And this is how the world deals with their idea of love even among those that they say they love, without even mentioning how they feel toward their enemies.  Jesus shows us that love is not necessarily something we feel, but it is something we do. He shows us that love is not something we fall into or out of.  How, you ask, does He show us these things about love?  Look at the cross and you will find the clearest and loudest definition of love.  Jesus is suffering, He is committed, He endures sacrifice and pain.  And in this “God demonstrates His own love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  You will find that in Romans 5:8 and two verses later you will find that at the time Christ died, “we were His enemies.”  (Romans 5:10)  Jesus perfectly exemplifies that which He speaks.  Jesus Christ says that you are to love one another...and that you are to love your enemies.

The world says resist your enemies, defeat your enemies, hate them, kill them, or at least ignore them and be rude to them.  Jesus says love them.  The Greek word for love here is agape, which means you are to love your enemies with an unconditional love.  So look for those who are your antagonists, and love them.  Not based upon the condition of their behavior, but upon the fact that you are going to love them with the love of Christ.  Think of those who are your opponents and do good to them.  Consider the one who is against you and pray for him.  Alfred Plummer was correct when he said, “To return evil for good is devilish; to return good for good is human; to return good for evil is divine.”  Love this way because it is the way God loves you.