"But I say to you, love your enemies,
bless those who curse you,
do good to those who hate you,
and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you..."
Matthew 5:44
Love them? Bless them? Pray for them? Don't you understand what he/she did to me?
...Oh yes, he understands.
This is the high call of God to live in a righteousness not possible to the fallen human nature. The Lord is asking what seems impossible. Don't think he doesn't know how deeply hurts can overcome us. He knows. But he wants to show you your inability to do, or even to be, what he requires. He wants to show you just how fallen your human nature is.
The hurts from friends or family will show you your true condition as it manifests in your anger, your self-justification, your desire for revenge, your pride, all of which are normal reactions in the fallen nature. If you truly want to follow Jesus, you have to start here, acknowledging your fallen state and your inability to live as he is prescribing in this passage. If we know that what he asks is impossible, then we understand that the only way to do it is to go to him, confess our inability, our anger, our self-pity, our self-justification, our pride, our desire for revenge, and ASK for the grace, the enabling, the ability, to forgive from the heart. You CANNOT do it in your own strength, but with his enabling you can do anything he desires of you.
"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."
Philippians 4:13
There is another facet to this as well. In my life, this is one way the Lord makes me aware of someone who needs prayer. Just as he says that the right response to a hurt is to pray for that person, I recognize a hurt or an insult as his signal to pray for a person who perhaps desperately needs prayer. To be able to do it with a pure heart, first we need to understand that our battle is not with flesh and blood. We're not fighting people, we're coming against Satan who causes the trouble, using people against us.
"For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood,
but against principalities, against powers,
against the rulers of the darkness of this age,
against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places."
Ephesians 6:12
What does that mean? It means that behind all evil is the demonic realm headed by Satan. In his hatred for us, he causes people to reject us, to hurt us, to spitefully use us. If you are born again, you are an enemy to Satan and he absolutely will turn people against you. But once you understand that, THEN you can separate the human source from the demonic source and understand the plot when he causes someone to hurt you. It's Satan, not the person he uses.
THEREFORE, we can overcome as we choose the way Jesus has showed us to react. THEREFORE we can pray for someone who desperately needs prayer, as we put the blame on Satan who caused someone to hurt us. Pray for those who "spitefully use you." Pray for them. This is how we turn the tables on Satan, we take what he does against us and we turn it to good.
Be aware that if a person is hateful to you, it's not just you - he's most likely hateful to others. This person needs prayer and by obeying the words of Jesus, you may be the only person on the earth praying for that hateful one. Oh HOW that person needs prayer! Use this opportunity, this signal, don't react in the fallen nature, take it as God's alert to you that this person needs prayer and pray for him/her with all your heart. Consider fasting for him/her. You will be amazed at how this changes things!
Obedience always brings blessing. You'll be spared the hatred Satan intended for you, and you will be filled with the love of God and the peace which Jesus intends for you. What a victory!
"Do not put your trust in princes,
Nor in a son of man, in whom there is no help."
Psalm 146:3
When a person comes to the Lord, he is coming out of the world of darkness and sin. It is revealed to him just how fallen he is and how fallen is the world he is coming out of, and that is usually shocking. He learns that he was born into this very fallen world, to fallen parents, into a fallen and wicked society, and all that he knows is tainted by the fallenness of it all. All has been corrupted. He has been saddled with a huge weight of "baggage," he is bound in chains, the result of his interactions with the fallen world. He is weighed down, hurt, crushed, hopeless, and helpless, and all he has to look forward to is more of the same. He is a prisoner, helplessly bound by the chains that bind him.
But when he is born again into the Kingdom of God, the believer discovers a whole new world. Instead of being brought low by the fallenness of the world around him, he finds he has been born into a world whose God is a God of love, of healing and of deliverance, a very personal God. Though he comes with a load of baggage, he finds he has come to the Healer and Deliverer who begins a deep work of restoration. Little by little the chains are broken and little by little the prisoner is set free.
vs 8:
"The Lord opens the eyes of the blind,
the Lord raises those who are bowed down."
A person new in the Lord is surprised that suddenly he can see what he never was able to see before. Those things that were closed to him, the Word of God which he could not understand - is now opened to him through the eyes of the Spirit of God who teaches him and reveals truth to him that he had no idea of. It is the beginning of a journey of learning and growth that will last for the rest of his life. Though he reads the Bible from beginning to end, still more is unfolded to him the next time around. It is forever new as more and more light is shed upon it. In the Word of God he finds life, and that - more abundantly. It changes everything.
"And you shall know the truth,
and the truth shall make you free.”
John 8:32
As the new believer begins walking with the Lord, he sees a transformation of his whole being. First, the Lord will "preach the Gospel to the poor," as his eyes are newly opened to see. And then in Christ he finds healing for his broken heart.
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to preach the Gospel to the poor;
he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed;"
Luke 4:18
We come out of the world a broken people, and we find that the love of God contains restoration and healing as the Lord moves from one wound within to another, and heals and soothes and changes everything. Christ breaks the chains of those things that held us captive, and sets the prisoner free. The Lord proclaims liberty as he restores sight to the one blinded by the darkness and lies of the world.
In Christ one will find freedom from what has oppressed him and tormented him and driven him. Yes, in Christ is the totality of salvation, not only the ticket out of hell, but the healing of all that the fallen world did to the captive. When a person is born again, all is made new.
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation;
old things have passed away;
behold, all things have become new."
2nd Corinthians 5:17
If you are broken, if you are weighted down, if you are carrying a load of baggage, bring it all to the Lord Jesus Christ your creator, and surrender your life to him. He will receive you no matter what is in your past. The judgment on all your sin he has taken upon himself as he was crucified on a bloody cross, bearing that judgment in your place. With his blood you will be made clean - for some, clean for the first time in their life. Yes, the blood of Jesus is that powerful. And the heart of God that merciful.
He has drawn you for a long time but you didn't come because Satan put excuses into your mind, Satan LIED to you about God. Turn from Satan now, turn from the corrupt world now, and surrender all that you are and all that makes up your life to the One who gave you life, and he will make you whole.
More:
What Is The Born-Again Experience?
"The cow and the bear shall graze;
their young ones shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play by the cobra’s hole,
and the weaned child shall put his hand in the viper’s den.
They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain,
for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea."
Isaiah 11:7-9
Can you imagine a world like this? The Lord will end the curse of death and destruction that currently rules this old earth because of sin, and in that day peace will reign. Even the animals will become peaceful and will play together without fear.
So then, why did the Lord allow the fall and the sin which has brought such destruction into the world as it is now? "If God is good," they ask, "why is there so much pain and suffering in the world?"
One reason is that knowledge is more effectively shown rather than described. It's much more effective if a child touches and hot stove and learns not to touch it again, than if the mother just tells him not to.
God has granted Satan a certain amount of time to freely work his vile rebellion among the sons of men. We have been allowed to experience the world of sin and destruction so that we will know first-hand how terrible it is. This time period is very short, relative to eternity. In the age to come, peace will reign under Jesus Christ. But even then, after a one-thousand-year period of peace and righteousness, Satan will be loosed and set free once more upon the earth, albeit for a very short time, because those living in those days will never have experienced the hellishness of sin and its consequences, and they need to see it for what it is.
"Now when the thousand years have expired,
Satan will be released from his prison
and will go out to deceive the nations
which are in the four corners of the earth..."
Revelation 20:7-8
Once again the visual will be there as Satan gathers those in the nations who will follow him - to bring them into rebellion against God and God's interests, especially against his holy city, Jerusalem. Man in his innocence will see the awfulness of the devil in all that he can lure men to do. Thankfully, it will be short lived.
vs 8-10:
"...to gather them together to battle,
whose number is as the sand of the sea.
They went up on the breadth of the earth and surrounded
the camp of the saints and the beloved city.
And fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them.
The devil, who deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone
where the beast and the false prophet are.
And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
Once the people who have lived in the age of peace have witnessed what they had never seen before, the visual will give way once again to the end of all rebellion once and for all and peace will reign, this time forever.
"And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes;
there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying.
There shall be no more pain,
for the former things have passed away.”
Revelation 21:4
If you desire to see those days, refuse to follow Satan who is called "the god of this world" (2nd Corinthians 4:4) as he lures mankind into unbelief and rebellion. Renounce him and surrender your life to Jesus Christ. He will make all things new for you even now, and you will see the day when all the curse and destruction will be over forever. And what is left ...will be unimaginable joy.
"I consider that the sufferings of this present time
are not worthy to be compared
with the glory which shall be revealed in us."
Romans 8:18
