“But I Say to You …” Part Four
Matt. 5:43-48
What, practically speaking, does the Kingdom of God look like in our lives today? Jesus boldly declared how to enter this invisible kingdom, how to maintain it, and counteracted legalism with liberty diving deeper into our everyday lives. Beginning with the Beatitudes He showed what entrance to the Kingdom looks like: humility, repentance, forgiveness, desiring righteousness, etc. We’re important to Him, body, soul, and spirit, therefore, His preaching included healing in all areas for wholeness. Look at the variety of healings in Matt. 4:24; they included body (sickness, incurable diseases), soul (pain, oppression, and suffering), and spirit (demon possession). His desire is our wholeness.
Here’s the deeper dive for today: love your neighbor and hate your enemy (duh!), but I say to you … show love and pray for your enemies as well. What? No way! Why would I even consider that? Because, if you want to experience Kingdom living, the higher life of a child of God, then you have to do it His way dying to some things (check out Luke 6:27-31). Keep in mind that ‘common grace’ shows the world He loves everyone, all people, sinner or saint, who enjoy the sunshine and rain without deserving it. Your enemies don’t deserve your forgiveness either. Jesus described kingdom living as loving and doing good to our enemies, those who’ve hurt or hate us; the Greek word for hate means to love, esteem, or value someone less because they’ve come against us in some way. They hate you and you hate them: not Kingdom living.
My mother, maybe yours too, taught me the Golden Rule:
Do unto others as you wish they’d do to you.
In Luke 6:35-38, the parallel passage, Jesus included judging your enemies, forgiving them, and showing them generosity. That, my friends, requires a death to self and life from the Holy Spirit to accomplish such a counteractive measure. His point was that you’ll receive back what you give out, reap what you sow, and children of the Most High God learn to neutralize the hate of offenses. Jesus said there’s no reward (now you’ve got my attention) for loving easy people, even sinners do that, but we must be perfect as the Father is. All He wants is perfection, yeah, right.
Precious readers, perfection isn’t being sinless; it’s our spiritual journey becoming mature believers. It’s having a goal, aiming at it every day, until you reach it. It’s your day by day, step by step, walk of faith continually being conformed to His image. What does living in the Kingdom look like? It looks like Jesus offering forgiveness, healing, and loving the unlovable always remembering that people are not your enemy: Satan is. If you want vindication or vengeance then keep your real enemy under your feet, since you sit with Him in heavenly places, by showing perfect (growing) kindness to everyone, he hates that, and as you progress you’ll find it gets easier.
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