Love Your Enemies & Repent of Your Heart (Luke 6)

“But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back.

“If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.” (Luke 6:27-36)

Some of the most famous words in history! How many lives have been transformed by these passages? How many were drawn to Christ because of them?

The theme of this sermon is the difference between a godly life and a sinful one. Notice He talks little of obvious godly rules, like, Tithe and Don’t steal, but instead He focuses on the heart and actions that directly come out of it like hate, envy, and bitterness.

“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you” (6:27-28) – this is a hard command to simply follow if your heart’s in the wrong place. Thankfully, we can find our example in God Himself, who is constantly and daily blessing those who hate Him: “For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matt. 5:45, similar context)

If we distill the passage from Luke, here are the marks of a godly, Holy Spirit filled life:

1. You will love your enemies, returning good for evil
2. You will be humble: “To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either” (6:29)
3. You will be generous, even to a fault (6:30)
4. You will do good (6:35)
5. You will not judge others or condemn
6. “You will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil” (6:35)
7. You will have hope despite present circumstances and even in persecution (from slightly earlier, in 6:20-23)
8. You will be like Jesus

Contrast this with Paul’s list of “works of the flesh” in Galatians 5: “sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these” (19-21). Many of these arise from a sinful heart devoid of any real love.

These "heart" sins are sometimes easier to ignore because they're not as measurable by the people around us. If we had a different sin problem, like watching pornography, we have the possibility of being caught and led to repentance. But sins like jealousy, anger, and enmity can be hidden so well that even we don't realize how much we suffer from them.

Jesus taught that it is what comes out of the heart that defiles a person (Matthew 15:10-20). Proverbs says, "Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flows the springs of life" (Prov. 4:23). If we claim to be Christians and love God we should be passionately committed to reviewing our heart and repenting any sins like these we find. We should be passionately committed to a different way of life, a godly way of life, full of "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control" (Gal. 5:22-23), the "fruit of the Spirit".

I wish my life looked more like Jesus’ sermon. Thankfully, I have the hope and peace in Christ that the more I submit to Him the more it will.

You are my God (Poem)

Let me preface this: I don't really write poems. It's just difficult for me and I don't feel comfortable doing it, but in a recent Spirit-filled moment I penned a few lines. I was just trying to pour some of my heart out onto the paper, so for me, this was exciting. For my readers, I apologize in advance. But here goes:

O God, You are my God

And I will not serve another.

O God, in You I put my trust,

I will not serve another.

I will not bow down before a piece of wood

Or a carved image,

Or an idea,

Or a man,

I will not place my hope in the future,

Or progress,

Or an idea,

Or a man.

I will look to the only One who can and

will save me from death:

And to Him I write

To Him I live

To Him I run

And I will remember - always -

the nails that bore my sins

and pained my God instead of me

The greatest mystery: this unmerited exchange

So that God might live inside of me.

Love (from my Bible Study notes)

These are my notes from when I prepare for my weekly Bible study. The theme is “Desiring God”, John Piper’s book, which argues that if we are serious happiness-seekers we will pursue God more than anything, because everything else cannot compare. Every week we look at a different topic (e.g. love, sin, truth…) and try to see differences between the way our culture sees it, we see it, and the way God sees it. It’s important to get God’s opinion on everything and realize if we are viewing something like “love” in a less than godly way.

WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY ABOUT LOVE?

Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses. (Proverbs 10:12)

Look at 1 Corinthians 13. Love is patient, kind, it does not envy or boast, it is not arrogant or rude, it does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful, does not rejoice in evil, rejoice in truth, love bears all things, it never ends.

How do we use the word on a daily basis?

“I love crepes” (I say that quite often). “I love that show,” is different from “I love you, mom.”

Love is a good thing, we love to love.

Who do I love the most?

How do I love them? How could I love them better?

Love is built on time. One reason I am closer to my parents than casual acquaintances is the amount of time we’ve spent together. If you love someone you crave to spend more time with them.

Do you only love people who are similar to you or who you easily connect with?

There is more to love than connection or emotion. Love is also an action – I can take in a man off the street, feed him, clothe him; and maybe I have nothing in common with him, but I still love him by feeding him and clothing him.

According to “Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible” love in the Old Testament is “the basic character of the relationship between persons, a relationship with the qualities of devotion, loyalty, intimate knowledge, and responsibility. It is not simply an emotion but is the total quality of relationship.”

One aspect of love is that you delight in the person. It is also about respect and responsibility.

Read 1 John 4:

1) Love is from God. (verse 7)

2) To be born of God and to know God is revealed in love, that is, it manifests itself in love is a sign of being born of God (verse 7).

3) God is love. People who don’t love don’t know God. (verse 8)

4) God’s love culminates and climaxes, reaches its greatest point in the sending of Jesus to earth and His death, burial and resurrection for us that we might be saved (verse 9).

5) God loved us first (verses 10, 19) through Jesus.

6) If God loves us, we should love each other (verse 11). Love should fill us and spill over to all peoples.

7) Although God can’t be seen, He is in us if we love. (verse 12)

8) Perfect love casts out fear. (verse 18)

9) You cannot love God if you hate your brother (verse 20). Also look at 1 John 3:15: “Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that c no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.”

10) If you love God you keep His commandments – especially those to love your neighbor as yourself.

CULTURAL LIES AND MYTHS ABOUT LOVE

1) Love is about me and serving my needs.

2) Love can arrive and go very quickly (the Romeo effect).

3) Love is about physical appearance and attraction. This is confusing love with lust. Once again, Romeo “loves” many women. He loves Juliet at first sight. We love the idea of “love at first sight” but consider what it really is: it means you love their appearance, not their person (you don’t know their person yet). For someone who lives by this kind of love it only moves from person to person, one can never satisfy, and each time it is “love”.

4) Love always feels good (and gives me what I want). As a kid I asked my parents for certain things and sometimes the answer was “No.” Do they love me? Yes. Maybe they can see that what I think is good for me is actually bad (or unnecessary).

5) Love works by rules. A lot of things people usually gripe about in romantic relationships is that certain “rules” of love aren’t followed. That is, “I say ‘I love you’, three times and you only say it once!” There’s no rules for love. Love lives outside of rules and not in them.

6) The best kind of love is romantic love. This is what romantic poetry is all about. The greatest pleasures the earth has to offer is in romantic relationships. God’s love is bigger.

7) Physical acts of love equal real love. Not true! Paul says, “If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:3). Even if you perform the act of giving your life for someone else without actually loving them, then you haven’t loved! Love is more than action (but also not less than it).

Is love only emotional? Only practical? Is it always both?

DIFFERENT TYPES OF LOVE (IN THE BIBLE):

1) Human love (sexual, familial, friendship, and society)

2) Divine love

a) In Himself (between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit)

b) For us

c) Us for Him

Human love does not compare with the love of God. Our love between each other is mangled by sin, hate, jealousy, etc. We are never wholly faithful to someone. Looking to God we are never wholly faithful to Him but He is always faithful. He ahs never sinned against anyone.

WAYS IN WHICH GOD LOVES US

1) He created us (“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb” Psalm 139:13).

2) He sustains us, providing food for us every day. Every blessing is a gift from Him. “Every good and perfect gift is from above” (James 1:17). He blesses us day in and day out, continuing to bring the sun and life and the seasons. You could look at creation and spend forever listing the things God does daily for us. Right now I’m breathing – I don’t know how I can, but I know God has given me the breath of life.

3) Friends, family, spouses. These too are gifts from God and ways in which He loves us. I can see God’s love in my mother’s care when I’m sick. We are built to be in relationship and our relationships are supposed to be defined by love.

4) Jesus Christ. “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)

“For God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

“In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.” (1 John 4:9)

5) The Holy Spirit. The Spirit gives life (2 Corinthians 3:6). We realize who God is and His love for us by the Spirit: “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” (Romans 5:5). The Spirit “helps us in our weakness.” (Romans 8:26)

6) “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

ASPECTS OF GOD’S LOVE

1) It "endures forever”. (Psalm 136)

2) Nothing can separate us from it. “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:37-39)

3) He loves whom He chooses (Romans 9), that is, we are not more special than anybody else, God just decided to love us.

4) Complete joy! Knowing God is to love God, to love God is to be full of joy.

5) This list is too short, there are many more qualities of God’s love. Read 1 Corinthians 13 and realize that God does all the things listed in there.

We will love better if we first love God, and God defines love.

Love Love Love!

Today we had our first bible study meeting, it was on love. I didn’t really think about how much this study would impact me! In preparing, it got me thinking about my family and my friends. I went on facebook and looked at some pictures of the my family reunion and went to my brother’s page and couldn’t stop laughing at some of the stuff he had put up. It felt good to look at people and say “I love them,” and revel in it.

The study was amazing, the Holy Spirit stirred our hearts a lot today. I feel like I’m on the edge of an epiphany or breakthrough. I’ve been overlooking something and not valuing it as much as I should. Looking at 1 Corinthians 13 I’ve taken it for granted, as “basic” Christianity, or “Obvious 101”. I’ve been overlooking one of the best passages in all of scripture, a passage that reveals how important love is and how foundational to everything it is because God is love.

This is so profound! Jesus talked about love so much yet I often times take it for granted and focus on the “Repent, believe” side of things. His great commandment to us is to “love our neighbor as ourselves”, along with the greatest commandment, “Love the LORD your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your might” (Deut. 6:5).

I’ve been overlooking something so simple yet so essential! Day to day in my relationships my #1 concern is How do I make myself look good? How do I make this person like me? How do I maintain my image?

How selfish! How inwardly bent! Just reading these passages today transformed the rest of my day. With every person I met I tried my best to love them, to care for them, to listen to their needs, to laugh with them, to enjoy being with them. What a great experience! I need to do this everyday.

One of the things I thought about in our study was how do we actively love the ones we love? Too many people grow up taking everything for granted, never saying “I love you” to their parents, never taking the time to do something loving for a friend, never doing something submissive and serving for someone else. How differently would I live if I actively pursued the ones I love with acts of love and service? My parents won’t always be around – when they die will I regret everything I didn’t say or do for them? Not if I think about that today.

God is burning the idea of community into my mind. What if everyone tried to out-serve everybody? A guy held the door open for me today and I thought, “Awesome!” It’s simple, but it’s great. If we removed sin from the world (which Jesus will do completely one day) and filled everyone’s hearts with love for everyone, what would that look like? It’d look like the church at its best, when its caring, loving, and praying for people.

Love! The greatest of these is love. I’ve been a crappy lover of people. God’s fixing that, and the more I love Him and delight in Him the more I love people and care about them.

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:37-9)

God turn me from myself to You and others. You are love and You define love. Please bless me with the ability to love and Holy Spirit may I love more and more and more, may I give more and more and more, and may I serve more and more and more, all because of You. In Jesus name, AMEN.

We Live in Darkness - 1 Corinthians 8 Part 1

I read: 1 Corinthians 8

In 1 Corinthians Paul is addressing questions the church in Corinth had. Paul addresses them with love and truth. Wouldn’t it be exciting today to get a letter from Paul (or God, whom this letter is ultimately authored by) addressing all of our church debates today? Hey, Apostle Paul, what’s the deal with evolution? How are we supposed to read Genesis 1 & 2? Or: Hey Paul, is it really Jesus’ physical body and blood when we take communion?

We’ve seen over the course of church history and even biblical history that there are always theological disputes like in 1 Corinthians 8. The reason why is because often times our questions can’t be answered in black and white – and when we try to answer them in such ways we often end up fighting with brothers and sisters who disagree.

This is exactly the kind of problem Paul is addressing. “Now concerning food offered to idols” (1 Cor. 8:1). To help contextualize this debate let’s change the topic from food offered to idols to drinking, a hot church topic in our time.

Many churches today have different “doctrines” when it comes to alcohol. If you’re a Southern Baptist you can’t drink alcohol at all.

It’s interesting that Paul doesn’t respond to this debate in a similar way. He doesn’t say: “Well, since it’s bad for some it’s evil for all. Don’t do it.” Instead Paul highlights this tension that marks the Christian life. We are not called to cut off everything in the world because then who would hear the gospel? We are supposed to be in the world (which is evil and sinful) but not of it (we must be righteous).

Interestingly, Paul’s answer starts by calling everyone in the debate to look at their motives and their hearts. Paul calls them back to the knowledge we are given through God’s grace: the knowledge that points out sin and folly and God’s greatness. In the case of food offered to idols the wisdom of God reveals:

“an idol has no real existence,” and that “there is no God but one.” For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth – as indeed there are many “gods” and “lords” – yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we all exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. (1 Cor. 8:4-6)

Okay, Paul says, we as God’s children have been blessed to see and know the one true God, and consequently, see that there are no other gods. “However,” Paul continues, “not all possess this knowledge” (1 Cor. 8:7). If everybody did, there wouldn’t be any chicken sacrifices or moon worship (this stuff still goes on today, just like always). People would see the one true God and know that there are no other gods before him. But most people don’t see that – in fact none of us can unless God reveals Himself to us.

Let’s take a quick detour (okay, this won’t be quick) and remind ourselves how we have gained this knowledge of God. First, we remember that we are rebels, we re sinners, we are not good. We think and do bad stuff. If we’re honest with ourselves – and we don’t rationalize our goodness by comparing ourselves to people “worse” than us - we’ll see this. We don’t care about God or seek Him even though nature itself is declaring His love to us (“The heavens declare the glory of God, the sky above proclaims his handiwork” Psalm 19:1). Instead, we live our lives, focused on me, me, me, and we try to eek out whatever pleasures we can from this life. We do things that hurt people and we do things that hurt ourselves because either 1) we don’t realize it or 2) we can’t stop.

Please, take a minute and examine yourself: don’t compare yourself to Adolf Hitler and the worst people of our time, compare yourself to Jesus and ask: “Am I as righteous as Him? Am I without sin?” If you answer “yes” then you’ve just lied to yourself, which is a sin and now you’re back with the rest of the human race.

This kind of existence doesn’t lead to joy, it leads to death – “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23) and “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23).

Think of us as a deaf, dumb, blind people. Our sin has made us this way. We stumble about in darkness, unsure of where we’re going or what we’re doing.

John, the “beloved disciple” who wrote the Gospel of John writes about how we are in darkness and that the light we need is Jesus:

The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. (John 1:9)

Buddhism and other religions talk about this need for “enlightenment” – which expresses the idea that we are currently in the dark. This is exactly right. What Buddhism and other religions get wrong is how to get the light to shine on them – we can’t reach “enlightenment” or escape spiritual darkness by “denying ourselves”, by denying our bodily functions, or by thinking and living a certain way, or even doing certain things. No, we are deaf, dumb, and blind.

How can a blind man make himself see or a deaf person make themselves hear? They wouldn’t even have a concept of what sight and sound are! If, hypothetically, a blind person could give himself sight, would he even know what it was? (I’ll return to this in a moment).

Again, can a people who have been in total darkness their whole existence build a fire for some light? They don’t even know what a fire looks like!

We need a second party to 1) tell us about fire and 2) to build one for us. Or, in the case of the blind man, he needs someone to 1) tell him about sight and 2) give it to him. The blind man would only know what sight is if someone else had told him about it. Jesus, the “light of men” (John 1:4) does that for us and more. He gives us eyes to see and tells us what it means. He truly is the light shining in the darkness (John 1:5).

So if we are in darkness it is plain to see that we will never have clarity or spiritual wisdom or truth about the world until it is revealed to us by someone who has sight. Every spiritual teacher or authority who has ever lived cannot offer us insight to that which is not known – Buddha, Aristotle, Plato, they all had to use their brains to speculate about what truth was, or what lies beyond the grave. But ultimately any truth they did discover is marred by their blindness. Picture them in the dark finding objects and feeling them all over – they may be able to tell you quite a lot from all they have to work with but if someone turned the lights on, the truth would be made plain.

Jesus, on the other hand, knows all truth and knows God because He has lived with Him forever.

Let’s say there is a rich man in town you know nothing about because he lives on a hill, very high up beyond your field of sight. You know he lives there but as to his person and character: you have no idea who he is. You try to guess what he does and what he’s like, you discuss it with other people who live around you – but they don’t know either. You have guess but you can never be sure.

Then one day the rich man sends his son down to talk to you and the other people about himself. This son completely destroys your theories and speculations about the man because he has seen him firsthand and knows him intimately. In addition, this isn’t something like the rich man’s garbage collector, this is his son. Not only does the son know the rich man, he is the best authority on how to describe him and explain him, because in a way he is the rich man too, his very flesh.

We can see in this metaphor the value of testimony from one who truly knows. Jesus claims to be the Son sent by God:

“And the Father who has sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen, and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent.” (John 5:37-38)

Jesus points out that although we have a lot of thoughts and theories about God, we have not seen him. Jesus alone has, and He says that He has been sent to tell everyone just who God is.

You would think if this were true – God’s Son come to earth – that there would be more rejoicing, more excitement. Our eyes would be healed! The darkness will be lifted and we will see! Isn’t that what everyone wants?

The problem is that people are so marred by the darkness that they enjoy it and hate the light.

Jesus says:

“The light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his work should be exposed.” (John 3:19-20)

So, to drive home the main point, we are rebels of God reveling in our darkness and Jesus’ light hurts our eyes. But it’s the only thing that will save us – only through Jesus hand we are saved, only through this light can we clearly see who God is.

“If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31-32)

And:

…from his fullness we have all received, grace up on grace. (John 1:16)

This sight, this clarity, this knowledge is a gift of grace. That’s what I’m trying to say. Once we have this gift it’s easy to scoff at those who don’t – once we have the knowledge of the one true God it’s easy to scoff at the person who bows down to the moon – but this is incredibly arrogant of us. The only reason you know there’s nothing in the moon to worship is because God through Jesus revealed it to you. This arrogance in know in the truth leads to problems in the way we interact with non-believers, or those still in darkness.