Tough Love

SCRIPTURE:  You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. Matthew 5:43-46 ESV

The idea that your faith can somehow be clear of political issues is preposterous, it’s illogical and, worse than that, it hurts people. If you care about people you need to understand you have an obligation to get involved in politics…in voting. …The idea that somehow I don’t want to be bothered with ‘that,’ really becomes foolish. Again, the bottom line is that it hurts people. We’re commanded to love our neighbors, our enemies. We’re commanded to care for people and the only way you can do that, on some level, is politics.

Government is often the problem. Reagan said that. And so if you believe government is the problem, you need to get involved in politics and government to whittle it down, to cut it back so that it’s not effectively socialism leading into Marxism/communism because those kinds of governments will push God out, and when you push God out, you hurt people…. Unless Christians are involved in government, government will just grow and grow and grow and Biblical voices will get pushed out, which is what’s been happening.

– Eric Metaxis, Author, If You Can Keep It
live interview: https://www.myfaithvotes.org/mfvtv?ac_vh_s=link#/search/ojcfsu3blfcueq2ogzkte4d2knrus6sj?q=Eric%20Metaxis

THOUGHT: What does it mean to love our enemies? What did Jesus mean, and how did he demonstrate it in his own life (which was the object of pretty fierce hatred – and still is)?

Praying for an enemy is, in fact, an act of love, as is asking forgiveness for the people who are killing you, but those aren’t the only ones. Eric Metaxis is calling us to a higher form of love that engages in the culture like Jesus did, rather than withdrawing from it. Jesus called out the powerful on their legal misinterpretations. He called out the religious on their abuses of God’s ways. He called the unfaithful to faith. He called out the enemy of souls and shut that presence down.

He didn’t practice hate speech; he practiced tough love.

Out of love, we care for others from positions of authority within culture. We become activists for what is right, even as there are activists for what is wrong and will hurt people. We seek positions in structures where our Biblical worldview will color our comments, decisions, and lawmaking (or interpreting).

Too long the church has only involved herself in social justice, and allowed the halls of legal justice to be filled with those who despise God and his ways. Look at the litter of that around us. Too long we have bought the lie that you can’t bring your faith with you to the marketplace. Too long we’ve been taught that separation of church and state means the state doesn’t need to reflect and respect the God of inalienable rights. Too long we’ve allowed culture to define love in some soft and weak way.

Loving our enemies means bringing the heat of the sun to both good and evil; bringing the rain to both the just and unjust. Just meditate on that awhile.

PRAYER: Oh God, I want a more full theology of love.