This is another one of those “today we’re returning to visit the blog…” type of things, but with a twist. On three previous occasions we’ve taken you to the blog Rhetorical Jesus by Jack Wellman. Our policy is not to ‘borrow’ the graphics which go with the original pieces because often we can’t trace their origin and people get somewhat testy when you use their graphics.
However, the whole point of Rhetorical Jesus — and one which we only directly addressed in one of three previous instances of featuring their material here — is that there are some great looking memes which you can use to promote these devotionals on your social media page, and then link your friends and contacts to the devotional teaching. (Never just take in valuable Christian teaching to absorb for yourself; always be looking for creative ways to share and spread the message.)
So today we’re using the picture to help you get the idea of how this works. Click the title below to read at source. And remember to love people without a reciprocation requirement!
If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them.
Matthew 5:44
But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
When We Were God’s Enemies
Jesus tells us to not only love our enemies but actually pray for our persecutors. Easy to say but so very hard to do it, isn’t it? I know that we were once enemies of God (Rom. 5:10) and wicked sinners (Rom. 5:8), but God saved us through faith in Christ. Our enemies are not really our enemies but enemies of Christ. They may not actually hate us as much as they hate Him Who is in us (Matt. 10:22; John 15:18). If we love only those who love us, what makes us any different from those in the world since even sinners love their own family? To make us more like the sons and daughters of God, we are commanded to love our enemies so that we might be more like the children of God (Matt. 5:45).
Loving the Unlovable
Since God loved us enough to send His Son to die for us, which is truly something we didn’t deserve, should we not also love and pray for those who are persecuting us and those who are our enemies? We are giving them what they don’t deserve, just as God gave us what we didn’t deserve–we call that grace. What we truly did deserve we didn’t actually get–that’s what I call mercy. How many of us were living in sexual immorality and were greedy, slanderers, adulterers, thieves, drunkards, and swindlers (1 Cor. 6:9-10)? I would imagine that most of us were some, if not most, of these things at one time, but by God’s good grace, that is all now behind us because we’ve been washed in the blood, sanctified by God’s Spirit, and justified by the Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 6:11). We now have the righteousness of Christ through Jesus’ work on the cross, and the Father sees us as having Jesus’ own righteousness (2 Cor. 5:21). We should have the same compassion on those who are not yet saved as God had for us.
Being Different
Since we have now been justified by God in Christ and have been saved by grace (Eph. 2:8-9), we should be witnessing to the lost, loving those who are our enemies, and praying for them because God doesn’t want anyone to perish (2 Pet. 3;9), and neither should we. If we respond in like manner to the way we are treated, we’re no better than the unsaved tax collector in Jesus’ time (Matt. 5:46). If we only receive our own brothers and sisters, aren’t we the same as those in the world (Matt. 5:47)? The answer to that rhetorical question is no, we are no different than the unsaved. Christ calls us to better things than that and to strive for perfection (Matt. 5:48) and not live like the world.
A Closing Prayer
God, I truly need help in praying for my enemies because it is not natural for me to do so. Please empower me by Your Spirit to have the ability to love my enemies and pray for those who are my persecutors because I cannot do it in my own strength, and I pray for these things in Jesus’ name. Amen
Christianity 201 
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