Chapter 13 - The Enemy -- the "Extraordinary"
Bonhoeffer- 'Love asks nothing in return, but seeks those who need it. And who needs our love more than those who are consumed with hatred and are utterly devoid of love? Who in other words deserves our love more than our enemy?
Am I asked how this love is to behave? Jesus gives the answer: bless, do good, and pray for your enemies without reserve and without respect of persons.
"Love your enemies." The preceding commandment had spoken only of the passive endurance of evil; here Jesus goes further and bids us not only to bear with evil and the evil person patiently, not only to refrain from treating him as he treats us, but actively to engage in heart-felt love towards him. We are to serve our enemy in all things without hypocrisy and with utter sincerity. No sacrifice which a lover would make for his beloved is too great for us to make for our enemy. If out of love for our brother we are willing to sacrifice goods, honor and life, we must be prepared to do the same for our enemy. We are not to imagine that this is to condone his evil; such a love proceeds from strength rather than weakness, from truth rather than fear, and therefore it cannot be guilty of the hatred of another. And who is to be the object of such a love, if not those whose hearts are stifled with hatred?'
My thoughts-
Mat 5:44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you
Jesus' words.
These aren't words coming from just anyone. These aren't words being spoken by someone who knows no enemies. Jesus has the greatest enemy in existence. All the evil people in the world are evil because of this greatest of enemies. The evil people would not be evil except this being exists to encourage evil to flourish.
From the ONE who knows the most evil being in existence we hear these words. "Love your enemies."
From the ONE who knows the depths of evil's power, the depravity that it will go to, we are being taught this lesson. "Love your enemies."
Suffering unlike anything we can imagine was known by Jesus. Some might say He was not tortured for years, He was never abused all His life from His youth up, He was never put through some of the hideous acts that people can suffer, and they'd be right. But no human being who has ever suffered from the greatest to the least, the youngest to the oldest, has ever known heaven, has ever known everlasting to everlasting.
What our Savior is teaching when He tells us to love our enemies is that we are to love with the love that HE loves with.
He, by HIS life and death, has made it possible for US to be forgiven our worst of sins.
He died to SAVE ALL that would be SAVED.
He offered us this amazing LOVE and He asks that WE through HIM and HIS power LOVE the same.
He can ask us to love the worst of the worst, because He already has. He's forgiven the worst.
EVERY stroke of evil ever made has been felt by our Savior. He's not immune to suffering, He's felt and feels it all. He knows our pain. Every strike that Satan makes it's against God, it's made to hurt God. Our Savior loves in a way we can scarcely comprehend and that is truth.
He can tell us to LOVE our enemies because He knows if we do NOT love our enemies then we are really hurting ourselves.
He can tell His followers to LOVE their enemies because His followers will know HIS love and it is only with HIS love they can love their enemies with.
This is truth.
Those that are NOT His followers will not be able to truly love, let alone love their enemies.
By HIS GRACE alone we can LOVE!
When Bonhoeffer writes of how we are to love our enemies, not by merely and passively forgiving but by truly being LOVING and all that means towards those enemies, HE UNDERSTANDS, this is the love Jesus loves with!
Bonhoeffer- 'Love asks nothing in return, but seeks those who need it. And who needs our love more than those who are consumed with hatred and are utterly devoid of love? Who in other words deserves our love more than our enemy?
Am I asked how this love is to behave? Jesus gives the answer: bless, do good, and pray for your enemies without reserve and without respect of persons.
"Love your enemies." The preceding commandment had spoken only of the passive endurance of evil; here Jesus goes further and bids us not only to bear with evil and the evil person patiently, not only to refrain from treating him as he treats us, but actively to engage in heart-felt love towards him. We are to serve our enemy in all things without hypocrisy and with utter sincerity. No sacrifice which a lover would make for his beloved is too great for us to make for our enemy. If out of love for our brother we are willing to sacrifice goods, honor and life, we must be prepared to do the same for our enemy. We are not to imagine that this is to condone his evil; such a love proceeds from strength rather than weakness, from truth rather than fear, and therefore it cannot be guilty of the hatred of another. And who is to be the object of such a love, if not those whose hearts are stifled with hatred?'
My thoughts-
Mat 5:44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you
Jesus' words.
These aren't words coming from just anyone. These aren't words being spoken by someone who knows no enemies. Jesus has the greatest enemy in existence. All the evil people in the world are evil because of this greatest of enemies. The evil people would not be evil except this being exists to encourage evil to flourish.
From the ONE who knows the most evil being in existence we hear these words. "Love your enemies."
From the ONE who knows the depths of evil's power, the depravity that it will go to, we are being taught this lesson. "Love your enemies."
Suffering unlike anything we can imagine was known by Jesus. Some might say He was not tortured for years, He was never abused all His life from His youth up, He was never put through some of the hideous acts that people can suffer, and they'd be right. But no human being who has ever suffered from the greatest to the least, the youngest to the oldest, has ever known heaven, has ever known everlasting to everlasting.
What our Savior is teaching when He tells us to love our enemies is that we are to love with the love that HE loves with.
He, by HIS life and death, has made it possible for US to be forgiven our worst of sins.
He died to SAVE ALL that would be SAVED.
He offered us this amazing LOVE and He asks that WE through HIM and HIS power LOVE the same.
He can ask us to love the worst of the worst, because He already has. He's forgiven the worst.
EVERY stroke of evil ever made has been felt by our Savior. He's not immune to suffering, He's felt and feels it all. He knows our pain. Every strike that Satan makes it's against God, it's made to hurt God. Our Savior loves in a way we can scarcely comprehend and that is truth.
He can tell us to LOVE our enemies because He knows if we do NOT love our enemies then we are really hurting ourselves.
He can tell His followers to LOVE their enemies because His followers will know HIS love and it is only with HIS love they can love their enemies with.
This is truth.
Those that are NOT His followers will not be able to truly love, let alone love their enemies.
By HIS GRACE alone we can LOVE!
When Bonhoeffer writes of how we are to love our enemies, not by merely and passively forgiving but by truly being LOVING and all that means towards those enemies, HE UNDERSTANDS, this is the love Jesus loves with!
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