Love - the Expectation

But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who harass you so that you will be acting as children of your Father who is in heaven. Matthew 5:44-45 If ever there was a saying from Jesus that focuses our life centre and challenges us to be more Christlike this is one of them; for this is only one of many which pull us up sharpish. There is a challenge in these words because we are not so oriented by our human nature. If we had our druthers we would be keeping our eye out for No 1; like me. But instead Father gives us the nudge to consider others before ourselves and to love even those who are not so likeable. And He goes even further, in that we are to remain constant even when the going is not so smooth. There is nothing quite as character building as praying through a negative situation and waiting for the Master to work it out to His plan. This may take a while and sometimes we may need to stand to in the situation against the buffeting of ill winds and loud storms. However we must be certain that Jesus is as good as His promise that He will be with us through the storm and that He will not let us to go further than we are capable of bearing. Often it seems to me we are Pauline in nature more so than Jesus natured. Paul makes it clear that we are to love our brothers and support them in the crisis. On the other hand the Master makes it clear that we are to love our enemies and to pray for those who go out of their way to make our life a misery. Pauls challenge to love our brothers is a cakewalk compared to what Jesus calls us to be. But if we are in the business of kingdom building and especially reaping a harvest from the people who do not know the Master then loving our neighbours will mean a higher reward than loving our brothers alone. Granted the New Testament churches were known for the way they loved the brotherhood, as people on the outside of faith observed but that was a different era. Today if people observed us loving each other, it would probably come out as an altogether different meaning. Coincidentally they were know by the way they faced opposition and even persecution, they considered it welcome; as a privilege that their Master considered them worthy of bearing His name. Back to the now, if not the future, and comparing ourselves with those heroes of old I wonder how we would hold up. I rather feel that we are rather too comfortable in our secular society that we would rather run from than opposition than welcome it, or feel honoured by pressure to justify our faith position. There are some who live in places that Jesus Faith is a minority faith where the threat of persecution is a very real threat, but in Christianised Nations persecution is a remote possibility. In a way it is unfortunate that the poor and those who fall through the cracks of the social agenda are taken to be their own worst enemy and deserve their position by many if not most of the upright faithful. It seems that Micah 6:8 in the Old Testament is a lost verse or one that is left out of most Bibles. One can only hope that this will be lifted into plain sight in the years to come. For God loves what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.