Scripture: Luke 6 v 35:
"But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend,
hoping for nothing again, and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the
children of the Highest: for He is kind to the unthankful and the evil."
It is always difficult to love sinners the way God does,
to be kind to ungrateful, evil people is often beyond our ability. The media is
full of the atrocities of ISIS - the destructive Islamic psychopaths running
rampant in the areas of Iran, Iraq and Syria. What the media don't report is
what Christians in those areas are doing.
Believers are taking these evil people into their homes,
even after they have killed their family members, and giving them food and love
and the gospel. Hundreds, if not thousands, of militants have converted to
Christianity through the love and kindness of God's people.
The sinners of the world are won by love, God's love shed
abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. Its the one thing Satan and his people
cannot copy. His best display is just lust. The true, pure love of Christians
will conquer the hardest, meanest heart.
I am reminded of a testimony from Holland. A factory
owner saw his factory being broken into late one Friday night. He drove up to
where their truck was parked and helped them fill it with the goods out of his warehouse.
The astonished robbers asked who he was. He said I am the owner.
Why are you doing this, they asked. He answered,
"Because Jesus loves you, I love you, and I can withhold nothing from
you." The truck sped off. On Sunday afternoon the factory owner noticed
that same truck at his warehouse offloading everything they had taken. He asked
why and they said, we could not steal from someone who loves us, we want to
receive Jesus as our Lord and live honestly from now on.
We are here to extend the Kingdom of God as His
Ambassadors. The greatest asset we have is love that comes from our Father, for
God is love. You have never truly loved until you have loved an enemy.
Prayer: Heavenly Father, You loved us while we were yet
sinners. Your love sent Jesus to the
Cross to remove us from death and destruction in Hell. We cannot pick and
choose who deserves love, we must love one another as You love us. We must love
our enemies and win them out of a loveless world into Your glorious Kingdom. In
Jesus' name. Amen.