Love Like God

May 14, 2022

Devotions:

“Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. 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; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” ‭Matthew‬ ‭5:43-48‬ ‭KJV‬‬

The end of the matter is to act like the Father. Jesus was telling the Jews something that He knew that they could not fulfill to show them that they could not be pleasing to God by their own fleshly efforts. They did not have God’s nature in them. They thought that they were pleasing to God because they kept the outward form of the law. But the law was much deeper than the simple reading had given them. The end of the law is to love as the Father loves.

In the New Covenant we have the love nature of our Father within us by the new birth. We must look to that greater one in us to walk in the God kind of love. But that is our nature. Our flesh still wants to do wrong. When someone does us wrong we want to get back at them, to get revenge. But God’s way is to pray for them, not to ask God to smite them but that God would bless and prosper them. We are to bless those that curse us. We can only do this by looking to the greater one in us and drawing on His love in us for them. We have the nature of God so we need to learn to act like God.