A Hill Worth Dying On

SCRIPTURE:  But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike. If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. Matthew 5:44-46 NLT

THOUGHT: It’s Holy Week, and this is a Holy Week reflection. Did not the one who said these very words also fulfill them? Was he not the perfect imitator of God as he hung on the tree saying, “Father forgive them”? Did he not love his enemies well by advocating for them, saying, “They know not what they do”? Did he not weep over the sight of Jerusalem, lamenting, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace!” Did he not love the unlovely, and unjust (even a tax collector named Matthew), the betrayer and the denier?

Yes, he practiced what he preached – and he preached that we should do the same, imitating God as children will a parent. But that’s where it gets rough, isn’t it? When is the last time you prayed for an enemy, or someone who spitefully used you – because I don’t seem to have that category on my prayer list. When is the last time I asked God to forgive another, forgiving them freely from my own heart and advocating for them because they didn’t know what they were doing?

I’m truly not one to preach here, or one to imitate for that matter, although I’ve certainly been forgiven much. But I do want to imitate my Father in heaven. He is generous in pouring sun and rain on evil and good, just and unjust. And if I just love those who love me, there won’t be much of a “well done,” so I’m going to keep climbing that mountain.

It is a hill worth dying on according to Jesus.

PRAYER: Oh God, to have your heart! To discern what is in the heart of another and still offer love and forgiveness! Make me more like you, I pray.