Love Like God Loves

The gospel requires of us that which we cannot do, and it empowers us to do what we cannot do. The power of God in the gospel by the Holy Spirit in regeneration and sanctification changes us. Apart from the finished work of Christ providing atonement for sin, and the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit giving us spiritual life and a new nature, we are hopelessly lost (condemned) and helpless to do anything about it.
Once we have been born again (regenerated) by the power of God in the gospel, we begin the process of sanctification, the process of growing in grace to be more like Christ. We participate in this by pursuing spiritual disciplines – prayer, Bible reading and meditation, fellowship with other believers, being active in a local church, evangelism, etc – but sanctification does not happen apart from the Holy Spirit in us. We grow in the grace of sanctification as the Holy Spirit informs our thinking through Scripture and empowers us to do what we cannot do.
The hardest demand on us is to die to self, being obedient to the Lord and loving others sacrificially. We are called to love others when we will not benefit from it. We are called to love others when we will suffer for it.
Consider the demands made on us in the Sermon on the Mount, specifically in what Jesus says about not getting even with someone who has wronged us, and that we are to love those who persecute us (see Matthew 6:38-48). This passage is part of a record of what Jesus said while teaching His disciples. He is showing that the common interpretation had tweaked the Law of Moses, making it easier for the people to obey, and He is telling the disciples – and us if we are His disciples – that His demands are far more stringent than the Law.
Jesus teaches that we are not to seek retaliation or retribution, that we are not to resist the one who is evil. We are to turn the other cheek, we are to give more and go farther than is asked. We are to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.
I summit that these demands are impossible. These demands go against our human nature. I’m not saying that some won't do this in a limited way, but what Jesus is demanding is not self-willed good behavior. What Jesus is demanding is different behavior from a different heart. What Jesus demands is real love, love that costs the lover, love that is given regardless of the response of the one loved, love for those who don’t love back, love for those who persecute and revile.
What Jesus is demanding cannot be done apart from regeneration, the Holy Spirit giving us spiritual life, and sanctification, the Holy Spirit empowering us to die to ourselves and live with Jesus as Lord of everything, and putting others ahead of ourselves.
Yet, even as we have been given a new life and a new nature we are still influenced by our old life and our old nature, and will struggle to love our enemies and not keep a record of offenses. What is our weapon in this struggle? It is, as always, Scripture. Our consideration of those who oppose us must be informed by Scripture.
Matthew 5:43-46 says: “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.”
With this, Jesus is calling His disciples to love like God loves. God makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. Since most of aren’t farmers, the timing of the sun and rain are not quite as important to us as it was in the agrarian economy of Jesus’ time. The sun and rain at the right time meant prosperity, or at least survival. The sun and rain at the wrong time meant disaster. God, in His love for all of mankind, makes the sun rise and the rain come and all mankind shares in the blessing. Sometimes He withholds the sun and the rain, and all mankind shares in the suffering.
Consider how many of these people that God blesses with the sun and the rain are His enemies. They rebel against his righteous commandments, they revel in their sin, they use His name as a curse, and some even curse him openly. Consider that kind of love.
Consider the grace that God extends by holding back His wrath, instead blessing His enemies with air and water and food and work and people to love. God does this for all, it is called common grace. Not that it is common in what it is, but that it is common to all.
God will not always hold back His wrath. His justice will be met. The penalty for sin will be paid. Grace has been extended for sin, but not to all; only to those who are born again and believe in Jesus and embrace His finished work on the Cross for their sin and repent, turning away from their sin. This grace, grace for salvation, is not common to all.
Consider the love that God has for those who have rebelled against Him. He sent His Son, incarnated as human, God putting on a body and living as a man in every way, yet without sin. Then this man, Jesus, was falsely accused, wrongly arrested and executed, having committed no crime. He was beaten nearly to death, his features marred beyond recognition, in a way that brought the maximum pain but not the relief of death. Then He was stretched out and nailed to a Roman cross to die in the greatest humiliation and in the greatest pain imaginable.
As he hung on that cross, every nerve in His body sending non-stop, unrelenting screams of pain to His brain, knowing that as bad as it was the pain would get worse, knowing that taking the curse of humanity’s sin would cause God the Father to turn away from Him, Jesus looks at the soldiers who drove the nails and the ones that accused Him and the ones that were there to mock Him, and says; “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing.”
What! How can this be? How can Jesus not want every one of these people dead and burning in Hell?
This can be because Jesus is God and He loves like God. He loves those who are persecuting Him as they are persecuting Him. He prays for those who are persecuting Him as they persecuting Him.
By saying; “they don’t know what they are doing” Jesus is not saying that they didn’t know that what they are doing was evil. They did. He is not saying that they weren’t responsible for what they were doing. They were. What He is saying is that if they knew who He was they would be on their faces worshipping Him.
The persecution was real, the pain was real, the humiliation was real, and these people were guilty of every offense, yet Jesus loved them and did not retaliate. This is the kind of love that Jesus calls his disciples to, to love like God loves.