Worship call 0717 Loving your enemy

Friends, learn how to teach! 2 Timothy 2:24-26 And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will. When the apostle Paul wrote this letter to his young student Timothy, he taught him some profound truths that I often apply in my life. I suppose when Timothy received these instructions, he was about my age – a young man still developing his skills at evangelism, teaching and instructing. Early in my Christian walk, I grabbed hold of a passage – let no man despise thy youth, but rather be an example in word, in conversation, in love, in spirit, and in faith. This was my mantra in the first years of my walk. Now I'm focusing on being a servant able to teach. Paul's instruction is not to "strive" -- I hear him saying "be careful to teach with a proper spirit" and to avoid "trying to prove that you're right". I want to be sure that I'm not trying to force my perspective on someone, but rather instruct with meekness, gentleness, and patience. One phrase in the verse says something about the effect of teaching in the right spirit-– "they recover themselves"! It's not our job to convince someone of the truth. We "contend earnestly for the faith" allowing the Holy Spirit to do the convincing, so that someone who is in error is free to repent based on God's conviction, and not my persuasiveness. So let's be sure we're leaving room for Him, teaching in a manner that Paul would be proud of. Friends, we're all called as servants; so let's strive to be servants that would make our Master proud! Your family in the Lord with much agape love, George, Baht Rivka, & Obadiah Sevierville, Tennessee

And this is another fine day in the Lord

There is a territorial battle going on between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent of Old.

Satan is the ruler of this dark world.

John 14:30; 16:11; 2 Cor 4:4; Eph 2:2; 6:12; 1 John 4:4; 5:19[1]

From the time that God Called and formed the Jewish people group and made a covenant with them, they had been on the target of Satan.

The hatred that they have received from the world can be seen as nothing but a supernatural hatred. This supernatural hatred which drove Adolph Hitler during World War II was probably the one of the major contributing factors to why Germany lost the war. Hitler pulled many of his military resources from the war effort to support his insane plan to exterminate the Jews.

Innocent men, woman, and children were more of a threat to Hitler than the approaching allies.

Even today, you will hear so called good upstanding and maybe even members of some church and church leadership who will make disparaging remarks about the Jews.

The big failing of many churches is the false doctrine of replacement theology. That is the church has taken the place of being God’s people. This is a lie. God still has a plan for his people.

Same with the Christian. It is the Christian. The Royal family of God. those who will one day rule with Christ after it has been taken from the dark Lord and his evil minions.

When one converts to Christianity they move from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light defecting from Satan’s dominion. When a believer goes from being a spiritual baby to maturity Satan loses more of grip on this world.

Satan will not sit idly by when there is one glimmer of light left on planet earth so there will be an all-out effort to destroy the children of light.

John 15:18–27 (NASB95) — 18 “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. 19 “If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you. 20 “Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also. 21 “But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know the One who sent Me. 22 “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 “He who hates Me hates My Father also. 24 “If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have both seen and hated Me and My Father as well. 25 “But they have done this to fulfill the word that is written in their Law, ‘They hated Me without a cause.’ 26 “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me, 27 and you will testify also, because you have been with Me from the beginning.

But how is it that a Child of God is to respond?

The Lord says

Love your enemies

Matthew 5:43 (NASB95) — 43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’

Leviticus 19:18 (NASB95) — 18 ‘You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord.

Hate your enemy is not found in the Old Testament teaching but may be alluded to.

Deuteronomy 23:3–6 (NASB95) — 3 “No Ammonite or Moabite shall enter the assembly of the Lord; none of their descendants, even to the tenth generation, shall ever enter the assembly of the Lord, 4 because they did not meet you with food and water on the way when you came out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you. 5 “Nevertheless, the Lord your God was not willing to listen to Balaam, but the Lord your God turned the curse into a blessing for you because the Lord your God loves you. 6 “You shall never seek their peace or their prosperity all your days.

Psalm 139:21–22 (NASB95) — 21 Do I not hate those who hate You, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against You? 22 I hate them with the utmost hatred; They have become my enemies.

The Righteous had never had any shortage of enemies.

Ephesians 6:12 (NASB95) — 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Matthew 5:44–45 (NASB95) — 44 “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,

25.43 ἀγαπάωa; ἀγάπηa, ης f: to have love for someone or something, based on sincere appreciation and high regard—‘to love, to regard with affection, loving concern, love.[2]

The Greek has a least three words that is often translated with the word love

Philos – affection for friends

Eros – passionate love

Agape – integrity, virtue unconditional love

It is Agape that is the focus

Love is not an exercise of emotion

Love is an exercise of thinking and applying God’s word.

1 Corinthians 13:4–8 (NASB95) — 4 Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, 6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away.

1 Corinthians 13:13 (NASB95) — 13 But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.

The greatest Act of love was the Love of Jesus when he died for the sins of the world.

Romans 5:8 (NASB95) — 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

It is that sacrificial love that the Christian extends to those hate him or her.

Romans 5:6–8 (NASB95) — 6 For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

This is what makes Love the greatest of the Christian virtues.

Hatred chains man to the darkness, but when the Love of Christ is shone through the believer it loosens those chains. Light burrows its way into the darkness showing a way out of it.

Returning hatred for hatred only aids the darkness adding fuel to already burning fire. But it is Love and yes it is sacrificial Love. For many have died for it.

But some maybe all of us will be challenged when are faced with the most vicious of God haters. What do we do with those like Corrie Ten Bloom who had to later find it in her heart to forgive a former guard who caused the death of her beloved sister?

I don’t think any of us can.

What we can do is love God first with all of our hearts and all our minds and all of our strength and it is then that we can love our enemy unconditionally.

That kind of love begins with what ye think of God. And as the Christian matures that love for God brings unconditional love for all mankind even for one’s own enemies.

Let us be careful when it comes to social media. I will visit from time to time my face book page. Just because a man and woman is not directly associated with you someone in the limelight a politician or actor of some sort does not mean we get away with hating them holding contempt in our hearts.

could we say that we would never assassinate a political leader but if we hold contempt for him or her in our hearts we have already pulled the trigger in our hearts?

1 John 4:16–20 (NASB95) — 16 We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 17 By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. 19 We love, because He first loved us. 20 If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.

[1] New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). The Lockman Foundation. [2]Louw, J. P., & Nida, E. A. (1996). In Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament: based on semantic domains (electronic ed. of the 2nd edition., Vol. 1, p. 292). United Bible Societies.

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