Today Daily Devotional

This is the hardest command I know. Love my enemies?

Yet this truly is Jesus’ command for you and me. It gets to the heart of the good news of Jesus. It shows that God’s love in Christ undermines our ­naturally sinful and broken way of life.

An enemy is, by definition, someone we hate. Christ overthrows this by replacing our natural hatred with his supernatural love.

We cannot possess such love without Christ. I can’t; you can’t. On my own, I will keep on hating people who have hurt me, or whom I think are despicable. I do not have the capacity to love my enemies, but Christ does.

In Romans, Paul writes that “while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son” (Romans 5:10). This verse is a short summary of salvation in Christ. We were once the ene­mies of God, but Christ reconciled us to God so that now we are friends.

Christ reconciled an entire world-full of enemies to God. So he can surely handle the reconciliation needed between me and my enemies. But I will have to ask him for that super­natural love. It will take a prayer something like this:

This may be the scariest passage in all of Scripture. The dead, including you and me, will be judged according to what we have done.

What we do matters. Our actions reflect and have an influence on the person we will be. We are either becoming more like the person we are called to be in Christ, or we are following our sinful nature and wandering away from God toward certain destruction. Even if we say we love Christ but our actions show the opposite, we are denying the love of Christ within us. What we do is proof of who we are. As James 2:17 puts it, “Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.”

A song I learned as a child talks about this: “Oh, be careful little hands what you do./ Oh, be careful little hands what you do./ For the Father up above is looking down in love,/ so be careful little hands what you do.” Other verses remind little mouths to be careful what they say, and little feet to be careful where they go.

God’s record of our words and deeds places great responsibility on us. We need to ask, “Are we acting as obedient, loving believers, or as destructive lawbreakers?”

But because of God’s love in Christ, we need not despair. We can repent of our wrongdoing, ask forgiveness, and be assured that Jesus’ sacrifice pays the debt of all our sin.

If we really loved one another, we could forget all the other commandments. For, indeed, love fulfills the law.

Love is a moral principle. A principle covers all the world’s moral activity. There are a few other moral principles, such as be holy, do justice, do no harm, and so on. These principles ­apply in all times and places. We can never say, “No, I don’t have to love here,” or “I don’t have to do justice there.” In all cases moral principles apply.

When we love someone, we should not need to be reminded not to steal from them, or lie about them, or cheat them. Such reminders are almost impertinent for someone who loves another. Paul says, “Love does no harm to a neighbor.” But doing no harm, or merely observing the law, is not enough. Only the perfect love that Christ showed when he gave his life for ours is sufficient to fulfill the law. Christ removed the curse of lawlessness and has given us everlasting life.

To love as Jesus did means that we incorporate God’s self-sacrificing love into our hearts. In Christ, God showed us not only perfect obedience to the law but perfect love.

And only Christ fully lives out that perfect love. We who live in this hostile world still struggle with desires to make gains for ourselves or to harm ­others. Since we still live with this tension, we still need the law.

Do you own an ox? How about a donkey? Then this law has little to do with you, right?

Perhaps. This is one of many civil laws found in the Bible. In ancient Israel, these laws were intended to keep order in society. All cultures have similar laws about property, but the nature of the property may vary from one society to another. All such laws aim at the same thing: civil justice.

The laws in this passage are specific to the agricultural society of ancient Israel. If you live in a society today with oxen and donkeys, you might want such a law in effect.

But even in societies that do not use oxen and donkeys, such laws can be useful. This one illustrates the principle of fair compensation. The pit digger should have covered up the hole. As a result, someone else lost something of value. Thus the pit digger should pay the owner for the loss of the animal.

How about an automobile? Do you have one of them? Do you drive responsibly? Are you insured so that if you harm someone else, you can provide compensation for their loss? If so, you are following a similar law in your own society.

Why are strange commands like these in the Bible? Do we have to obey them?

No. Many of the laws found in the Old Testament need not be kept by Christians today. Though they remain part of Scripture, their demands were satisfied later by Christ. Such commands are called ceremonial or ritual laws.

Ceremonial laws created cate­gories of unclean, clean, and holy living. The normal state of things was cleanliness. Corruption led to uncleanness, but sacrifice or offering led to holiness. When something became corrupted or polluted, it was unclean. When something was specially dedicated to God, it became holy.

Some of the commands in our reading for today were meant to keep God’s people from corrupting themselves with the practices of their pagan neighbors. Some of the religions of other nations included rituals for the dead that called for cutting oneself. Others insisted on marking themselves with tattoos to show which god or tribe you belonged to.

Since Christ sacrificed himself to make us holy, we need not worry about becoming unclean because of tattoos, dining customs, and so on. But it is still important to show love and respect to all people, and to deal honestly with everyone. Jesus is our best example, and the Holy Spirit is our guide.

The teachers of the law and the Pharisees were the leading citizens among the Jews. They knew what God’s law said, and they could tell people how to apply it. But they were hypocrites. They added their own laws on top of God’s laws, thinking that would “protect” the law of God from being disobeyed. But in doing so, they violated the spirit of the law, which is love.

Christians can do the same as the Pharisees if they add their own social standards to God’s law. “Surely a Christian would never listen to that kind of ­music, or wear those clothes, or dance, or . . .” We might think we are being especially zealous for the law of God by adding such restrictions. But God desires love, not legalistic additions to his law.

Following human standards while ignoring God’s call to love can lead to terrible results. It has led to racism: “We just followed the rules of apartheid!” It has led to sexism: “She should have known better than to wear that.” It has lead to nationalism: “We were just following our leaders’ orders.”

Such hypocrisy will condemn us on the day of judgment. Laws that do not aim at love for all people are not God’s laws. The Ruler of heaven and earth is not fooled by distorted rule-following.

I remember learning this verse in our church boys club, called “Cadets.” It is certainly a good verse for boys to learn, but keeping God’s commands is a good plan for everyone.

To some of us, this verse might seem so obvious that only a child would need to learn it. Of course! How could I love someone and then hurt them, or steal from them? That’s no way to treat anyone, especially someone I love.

In Psalm 119 we can tell that the writer loves God and wants to live God’s way. “I seek you with all my heart,” the psalmist writes; “do not let me stray from your commands.” If we are like this believer, we have a deep trust in God, and we know that only God’s faithful love and care can help us live by God’s law of love.

Though the commandments are often stated negatively—do not worship other gods; do not kill; do not steal; and so on—the summary of them all is positive: do love the Lord your God; do love your neighbor as yourself. (See Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:29-31.)

The commandments are not external demands; they are the framework on which love for God can grow and flourish. And without God’s love and the framework he gives us to live by, nothing will stand.

To help my students think about the relationship between love and God’s law, I would ask them, “How would you like to use the following for your wedding vows?

“I promise not to kill you, not to steal from you, not to cheat on you, not to swear at your parents. . . .”

Not once did a student say, “Wow, that sounds great! Can you send me a copy for my wedding?” That’s because these are negative legal statements, not positive promises of love.

Laws prohibit harm, whereas love promises good. Of course, you wouldn’t want to marry someone who vowed to kill you or steal from you. But promising not to harm someone would not give them much of a reason to marry you, either. You should not harm anyone, of course. And you should promise lifelong love to only one person.

So how do love and law work together? In Romans, the apostle Paul explains that we show love by serving and obeying the Lord, whose law reminds us and guides us to love God and love others. Paul writes, “Whoever loves others has fulfilled the law.”

Still, plenty of questions remain. How is the law fulfilled by love? How does the work of Christ change our relationship to the law? Why do we still need to obey the law? The way Christians live out the answers to such questions will direct our lives.

My daughters and I were privileged to be at their mother’s bedside when she spoke her last words. There is something very special about people’s ­final words.

Jesus’ prayer in John 17 is his final prayer with his disciples—just prior to his struggles in the garden and his betrayal, trial, and crucifixion. These words reveal his heart for all who believe in him!

Note what Jesus did not pray for. He did not pray for victory over Roman oppressors. He did not plead for the health and wealth of his followers. He did not ask for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. He did not even mention concern over worship practices or theological questions.

Jesus prayed for unity!

His prayer was that all who believe in him would be ­united with God and therefore be united with one another in “complete unity”—in all the days and years that followed!

Earlier that same evening Jesus said, “A new command I give you: Love one another. . . . By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34-35).

Love is an action word. As lovers of God, pray daily for grace to love your neighbors as yourself. That is what Jesus wants.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, I never would have predicted that I would be preaching live on the internet. I would have thought that would be my worst nightmare. But God opened the way for hometown preachers like me to share the good news of Jesus to a world hunkered down by a deadly virus.

But as the months dragged on, viewers dwindled. Surveys show that most people come to know Christ through personal interaction with others whose faith and actions are appealing and consistent.

Before returning to heaven, Jesus instructed his disciples (and us) to spread the story about him—how he paved the way for us to be set free from sin and to live fully and forever by God’s grace. This news is too good not to share.

My brother-in-law who is Muslim, my manicurist who is Buddhist, my oncologist who is New Age, and my friends who are turned off by “evangelical Christians” are all watching and listening to me. Your neighbors are watching and listening to you. Is the Jesus living in us someone they want to know? Can Jesus use us to love them into the fold?

As we walk our neighborhoods, go shopping, get haircuts, attend sporting events, and go to church, let us speak freely about Jesus’ saving grace.