Daily Scripture:
Luke 6:
27 Nevertheless, to you who are listening, what I say is this:
“Love your enemies!
Do good to those who hate you,
28 bless those who curse you,
pray for those who mistreat you.
29 “If someone hits you on one cheek,
offer the other too;
if someone takes your coat,
let him have your shirt as well.
30 “If someone asks you for something,
give it to him;
if someone takes what belongs to you,
don’t demand it back.
31 “Treat other people as you would like them to treat you. 32 What credit is it to you if you love only those who love you? Why, even sinners love those who love them. 33 What credit is it to you if you do good only to those who do good to you? Even sinners do that. 34 What credit is it to you if you lend only to those who you expect will pay you back? Even sinners lend to each other, expecting to be repaid in full. 35 But love your enemies, do good, and lend expecting nothing back! Your reward will be great, and you will be children of Ha‘Elyon; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. 36 Show compassion, just as your Father shows compassion.
(Complete Jewish Bible).Reflection Questions:
Jesus taught his followers how to live with his peace and joy. Yet he realized that not all would be willing to accept what he taught: “I say to you who are willing to hear.” The types of behavior Jesus described are not natural to any of us. We only move toward Jesus' kind of open, fear-free life as we allow the Holy Spirit to reshape our natural impulses to grow the fruit of kindness in our lives.
- Jesus gave specific examples, not to set up new, onerous rules for us, but to show the spirit in which he called us to live in practice. As The Message put Luke 6:30, “If someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life. No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously.”* When has someone touched your life for the better by living generously? When have you found the joy of living generously toward someone else?
- Luke linked the Golden Rule (“Treat people in the same way that you want them to treat you”—verse 31) to Jesus' words about how to treat enemies. In what relationships do you find it hardest for you to treat others as you’d wish them to treat you? How can Jesus' teaching help you discern how to live out the Golden Rule in ways that bless others while you maintain healthy boundaries and self-care?
Lord Jesus, pray for those who mistreat me? Love my enemies? You did it, but you were—well, you. I’m willing to listen to your teaching, and to learn your ways. Amen.
* From Eugene H. Peterson, The Message. NavPress, 1993-2002.
Read today's Insight by Brandon GregoryBrandon Gregory is a volunteer for the worship and missions teams at Church of the Resurrection. He helps lead worship at Vibe, West and Downtown services, and is involved with the Malawi missions team at home.
I’ll be honest: there are a lot of times I read the Bible to see how everyone else should be acting. Not me—I’ve got this stuff down. I just need to see what everyone else is doing wrong. (Disclaimer: this is wrong.) One reason for this (besides simple pride) is that I’ve been reading the Bible my whole life, and it’s easy for me to look at its teachings and say, “This makes sense. This is definitely how I should live my life, and it’s been my goal for a long time to do this.” But the fact is, the easy things to do aren’t much of a reason to get proud. If I’m doing something right, but almost everyone else is too, I need to dig deeper.
Jesus’ sermon on the mount is one of the most challenging passages for me, because nothing in that sermon is easy stuff. Nothing in that sermon is stuff that most people will readily accept into their lives. It’s all very hard stuff, and it’s very humbling for me to read it. Today’s passage (Luke 6:27-36) is one such passage.
Love your enemies? Do good to those who hate you? Bless those who curse you? Pray for those who mistreat you? These are things that, once again, I keep reading and trying to see how they apply to other people, but it’s much harder to apply and make sense of it myself. I immediately picture all the people who have been mad at me over the years and I get a little self-righteous, thinking, “If only these people would read the sermon on the mount!”—completely missing the fact that I could be treating these people better too. They might see my love and change their ways, or they might not. That’s not the point. The point is that my love for them needs to be unconditional on them changing, or apologizing, or seeing things my way. There may be people who hate me for their entire lives, and it doesn’t change how much I should love them.
My brain works overtime to try to give itself credit for doing this sort of thing, catching every little loving thing I do and adding it to my scoresheet, hoping for a positive score when the inevitable deductions come in. Oh, some guy on Twitter is being a jerk? I can be a jerk right back because last week I asked my coworker how his life was going and I really meant it. As if Jesus could see me today, he spoke directly to that as well: “If you love those who love you, why should you be commended? Even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, why should you be commended? Even sinners do that.”
Our love for others is not something to be earned, like a kid cashing in carnival tickets for a prize. Jesus says we’re to give out the prize whether the recipients have the tickets or not—even if they don’t even seem like they appreciate the prize. I’ll be honest, this is one of the hardest lessons I’ve ever dealt with, and I don’t think I’ll ever be completely comfortable doing this. I suspect you’re in a similar position. There’s nothing easy about this one.
All the world seems to be telling us not to waste our time on people who somehow don’t deserve our love. Toxic people. People with different political or religious views. People who don’t understand us. I see articles every week telling us to cut these people out of our lives and only keep the relationships that enrich us. There’s probably a line somewhere in there that shouldn’t be crossed, and I honestly don’t know where it is, but I know that I keep placing it too close to my own desires and emotions. I can’t tell you where to draw that line, but I think Jesus would tell each of us that it should be at least a little bit further than we’re comfortable with. I know I have my limits, but I also know I have more love to give—and should be giving.
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Scripture quotations are taken from The Common English Bible ©2011.
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