You have heard the law that says, “Love your neighbor” and hate your enemy. But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! [Matthew 5:43-44 (NLT)]
When thou hatest the man’s sins, thou art not to hate him, but to love the sinner, even as Christ loved sinners. [C.H. Spurgeon]
Evil is anything that contradicts the nature of God and it’s easy to see Satan’s presence in malevolent acts like terrorism, genocide, slavery, torture, and human trafficking. The enemy, however, is usually far more subtle. Evil also includes things like anger, pride, fretfulness, immorality, pettiness, selfishness, deceit, envy, spite, unforgiveness, hatred, hypocrisy, envy, jealousy, greed, and unkindness. Although we’re more likely to find them in our hearts than genocide or murder, they’re not as easy to recognize. Because it’s easier to see the evil done by others than it is to face the evil in our hearts, we don’t spot Satan when he comes slithering into our lives.
When seeing how innocent people are suffering because of the indifference, injustice, viciousness, bigotry, and greed of various governments and leaders, it’s easy to get outraged and aggravated. Satan wants that anger to grow and develop in us. He loves anger because our wrath, spite, contempt, disdain, and condemnation diminish us, the Christ within us, and our witness. Nevertheless, it’s easy to be angry and wish disaster on any one of today’s evil leaders and their ilk.
That we never would physically harm someone doesn’t make our anger less a sin than if we murdered them! That we’re angry on someone else’s behalf or that the other people’s sins have harmed people while ours have harmed no one (but ourselves) is of no matter. Malicious hatred and private vengeance have no place in our hearts. They are an offense to God and Jesus made it clear that hating someone is committing murder in our hearts! While we can be angry at sin, let us remember that we don’t defeat evil with more of the same! Rather than wanting to afflict our enemies, Jesus asks us to love and pray for them.
Struggling with praying for his enemies during World War II, the great C.S. Lewis admitted that “charity (in our prayers) is very hard work.” The theologian questioned how one can pray for Stalin and Hitler and still make the prayer real. He found it helped him to remember that Christ died for those very men and that he was joining his “feeble little voice” to that of Jesus. Recognizing his own sins of cruelty and unkindness, Lewis humbly realized he wasn’t that different from his enemies; he was no less a sinner than were these horrible men. He also considered the possibility that, under different circumstances, he could have “blossomed” into someone equally as terrible as were they.
Before hating the evil in the world, we must begin by hating the evil in ourselves! Let us surrender our vengeful thoughts to Jesus, ask for forgiveness, and allow His love to rule our hearts as we pray for our enemies. We can’t do it on our own but, through the power of the Holy Spirit, it can and must be done!
Agape is disinterested love. Agape does not begin by discriminating between worthy and unworthy people, or any qualities people possess. It begins by loving others for their sakes. Therefore, agape makes no distinction between friend and enemy; it is directed toward both. [Martin Luther King, Jr.]
The early Christians often marked anniversaries of the martyrdom of Christ’s followers. By the fourth century, however, there’d been so many martyrs that there weren’t enough days to honor them all and the idea of one feast day honoring all the martyrs began. In 609, Pope Boniface IV established an All Saints’ Day in May. After Christianity came to Ireland, however, the Roman church attached the Feast of All Saints to the pagan holiday of Samhain (a celebration of the end of the harvest and precursor to Halloween). In 847, Pope Gregory IV formally rebranded this pagan Celtic festival as All Saints Day. Saturday, November 1, is All Saints’ Day and, regardless of your denomination, it remains a day to commemorate all of the saints, not as determined by any Pope, but as defined in the Bible.
“Chocolate comes from cacao beans. Beans are vegetables. Salads are made of vegetables. Therefore, chocolate is a salad!” said the sign in the bakery. “I like their logic!” I thought. If you’ve ever tried to lose weight you probably know the loopholes used by dieters. Broken cookies have no calories because they fell out when the cookies broke, anything eaten with a diet soda is calorie-free, and food eaten off someone else’s plate doesn’t count because the original calories belong to them! Technically, anything licked off a spoon while preparing food isn’t eating; it’s cooking! Furthermore, if you’re eating with someone else, you’ve kept to your diet if the other person consumes more than you! As a once struggling dieter, I know all the excuses to justify over indulging. The worst lies are the ones we tell ourselves and, unfortunately, most of them aren’t as silly as these.
Just as we must not become stumbling blocks to others on their faith journey, we must be cautious of the stumbling blocks we encounter on ours. The Greek word usually translated as “stumbling block” was skandalon. It originally referred to the stick that served as the trigger for a snare trap but, eventually, scandalon developed two meanings. It was both a snare or trap that catches unsuspecting prey as well as something that trips a person and causes them to stumble and fall—in other words, a stumbling block. In both cases, the purpose of the scandalon is to catch its victim unaware!
When his life turned from riches to rags and all he loved and possessed (along with his health) was taken from him, Job’s friends came and silently sat with him on the ground for seven days. While this seems odd to us, it was perfectly normal in Job’s day. Seven days was the traditional mourning period and tradition held that those visiting a mourner weren’t to speak until the mourner spoke first. As it turned out, his friends’ compassionate silence was the kindest thing they did for Job. Things rapidly went downhill as soon as the three men opened their mouths!
In a book about evangelism, the author wrote of bringing a new believer into his office and the two of them saying the “Sinner’s Prayer.” After the new believer repeated the Pastor’s words, he was pronounced saved. While there is no official version of this “sinner’s” prayer, it probably goes something like this: “God, I know that I am a sinner and that I deserve to go to hell. I believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins. I do now receive Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior. Thank you, Lord, for saving me and forgiving me! Amen.” Many evangelical Christians speak of saying some sort of prayer like this at the moment of conversion. Is a special “Sinner’s Prayer” a requirement for salvation?
Devotions of the Heart 