2002-01-01
Good Morning Faithful Readers,
As many times as I am led to repeat the message of the importance of Christ’s Atonement to our lives, I never tire of looking at the extent of it from one context or another. That is because it is like many messages in the Scriptures. Each time one is brought to it for another look, God has something more to reveal to us. In taking up the part of my covenant messages that deals with being united in covenant, our Abba wants us to see exactly what that means. A child who learns something for the first time has a rudimentary understanding of it. As the child matures, he revisits that subject over and over, each time gaining more knowledge about it. Gradually, a change comes over the child that makes him not only really appreciate the Source of an idea, but to come to love the Source enormously. At the same time the child becomes an adult with wisdom no beginner can have. In the matter of the Atonement, God wants us to approach what we know about it in the context of learning to love our enemies. He wants us to really understand the depth of His love for us in the example of His Son suffering and dying on the cross for people who were His enemies, so they could have a chance for salvation.
MT 5: 43-48, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your friends, hate your enemies.’ But now I tell you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may become the sons of your Father in heaven. For He makes the sun to shine on bad and good people alike, and gives rain to those who do good and to those who do evil. Why should God reward you if you love only the people who love you? Even the tax collectors do that! And if you speak only to your friends, have you done anything out of the ordinary? Even the pagans do that! You must be perfect-just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” Whew! That’s a tall order. But then, nothing Jesus Christ has ever asked us to do was easy. There are a couple of things to note here beside the obvious message. One of them is the statement of the Father’s superiority and sovereignty in (45b). We need to understand the parallel truths of God’s ability to decide who gets rain and sunshine. No human can do that. We need to understand the underlying truth that everything we are and everything we have comes from God. Our responsibility to respond to God’s sovereignty here is to abandon the innate human response to shun and/or deride our enemies. The ways of the world and the ways of God are opposite. They often clash. We are forced to make a choice which way we will respond. It is easy to take the worldly way; it is much harder to take God’s way. It is because Christ died on the cross that we even have the choice! Have we ever considered the possibility that God allows us to have enemies in our lives, so that we will have the opportunity to demonstrate our trust and willingness to obey Him? Have we ever considered that God might be giving us a prime opportunity to plant the seed of faith with the help of the Holy Spirit in our enemy’s life? We can be sure these are questions the Christ Himself faced. Since the goal of the sanctification process is perfecting the believer to prepare him for glorification, have we understood Christ’s command here, “You must be perfect-just as your Father in heaven is perfect?”
JN 13 is the story of Christ’s time in the upper room washing the feet of the disciples, predicting His betrayal, and the new commandment, and predicting Peter’s denial. Verses 1-20 deal with Christ’s teaching on humility and on servanthood, demonstrated by washing the feet of his disciples. When compared with a number of vignettes from the Scriptures about Peter, we can see the amazing course of this disciple’s path to spiritual maturity. God and His Son understood Peter’s enormous potential for servanthood long before anyone else could. JN 13: 15-16, “I have set an example for you, so that you will do just what I have done for you. I am telling you the truth: no slave is greater than his master, and no messenger is greater than the One Who sent Him.” These were Christ’s own very humble words to help the disciples (and us) understand God’s sovereignty. Does this apply to dealing with one’s enemies? I would assert that it does. When dealing with difficult people in our lives, God asks us to keep focused on the bigger picture. He wants us to show the example of humility, not arrogance with them, just a Christ did with the disciples. While the disciples weren’t Christ’s enemies, this was a training ground for them to work with people who were. It was training for the disciples, and it’s training for us.
The omniscience that the Father and Son have allowed them to know Christ would be betrayed long before the disciples understood this. They see the bigger picture that we often can’t see. Even when Christ told the disciples straight out that He would be betrayed by one of them, they didn’t really understand [JN 13: 27-28; LK 18: 31-34]. Certainly Peter didn’t understand that he would deny Christ three times before the cock crowed or the significance of that until after it actually happened. Yet, knowing He was surrounded by His enemies, the Son left His disciples and us with the new commandment in JN 13: 34-35. “And now I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have love you, so you must love one another. If you have love for one another, then everyone will know that you are My disciples.” Our actions speak louder than our words, particularly with our enemies. We can rarely talk them into faith. But, by the peace we have and the loving ways we model Christ’s love taught to us toward others, enemies can sometimes be made to want that kind of peace for themselves. That is one of the ways that God transforms people inwardly by the renewal of their minds [RO 12: 2]. We must never do anything that might interfere with that process. There are countless blessings that come our way from being obedient to God.
PRAYER: O Lord, You often ask us to do things which are difficult for us. Yet, You know that are what is best for us, sometimes long before we do. There are many reasons why You have allowed people to suffer the torment of enemies in their lives. None of those reasons is evil. Sometimes, You are testing the endurance of our faith or our willingness to obey You. Sometimes, You are using us to bring others to faith. Sometimes, our interactions with enemies are ways that You reveal Your glory. When we obey Your commandments, we demonstrate how much we love You [JN 14: 21]. There is another blessing, one which we must truly come to appreciate. When we trust and obey You, even if it is hard for us, we are moving forward in the process of sanctification-getting closer to preparedness for that call to a meeting in the air with Your Son that You want for all of us. We offer thanks for His Atonement on the cross for us. We are privileged to be participants in the Covenant of Grace and that You have united us with each other and with You in that special covenant relationship called koininea [pronounced: “coin, in, ee, ah;” from the Greek]. We dedicate ourselves to loving each other, loving our enemies, and praying for those who persecute us. In humility, we offer You our adoration, worship, loyalty, trust, obedience, glory, honor, praise, reverence, and thanks. In Christ’s name, amen.
There is more to say about enduring persecution from enemies and about the supernatural connection between the Father, the Son, and believers as partners in the Covenant of Grace. That will be tomorrow’s subject. Even when our Lord is commanding us to do something as difficult as loving our enemies, He is demonstrating His profound love for us. That is because His agenda is always righteous. If we will place our trust in Him and obey His commands, He will give us ample evidence that He is pleased by the peace we feel, that peace which goes beyond human understanding [PHIL 4: 7]. His love for each of us is the most precious gift of His grace, and He demonstrates it in a myriad of ways including His Son’s blood shed for us on the cross. Peter and I send you our love too.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn