| Praying for our neighbor and more |
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19:18 You shall not take vengeance or bear any grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD. This is a lot harder than it seems on paper. How easy it is to bear a grudge! We nurse our wounds we have received from others, and hold on to our feelings of ill will for much longer than is necessary or healthy. I've done it. I'm sure everyone reading this has done it. And the thing is, for the Christian, it's really even more complex than what is suggested here in Leviticus. For Jesus had a much broader definition of "neighbor" than the Old Testament culture did. Furthermore, Jesus gives us an extra challenge: don't just love your neighbor--"love your enemies; pray for those who persecute you." (Matt. 5:44) Yeah, that's right, you heard right. Love even your enemies. We really drop the ball on this one, don't we? I mean, we've all offerred up prayers for our armed forces for the past several years, but when's the last time you heard someone add the Taliban or Osam bin Laden to their prayer list? I know some will be offended just reading that last question. "How dare you suggest we pray for the people who killed so many of our own?" But isn't that exactly what Jesus is demanding of us? He says it's easy to pray for those who do good to us. Even the pagans do that. (Matt. 5:46-47) It's not a matter of anything our enemies did to deserve our love; rather, it's a matter of being perfect, as our Heavenly Father is perfect. Now this explains why it's so difficult to love our enemies, or even our neighbor. Because, of course, we're not perfect like God, and we know we never can be. But this is no excuse to give up on the directive that Jesus is presenting here. Think of that the next time you think about terrorism, and how bad the terrorists are. Yes, they are bad, and they don't deserve our prayers. But we are to pray for them and bless them, as difficult, as impossible as that may seem. |
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