Scripture reading: Matthew 5:44-45
Let us look today at the love that you have for your family. God said that by this love you can learn a little of His love. He said, “Unto your natural love, add God’s love” (II Peter 1:7). The love of God, therefore, is above our natural love. What is the height of our natural love? A woman has a child and her very soul is knit to that child. If you are going to hurt that child, you are going to hurt the mother’s innermost being, because that child is not just a part of her, but somehow her whole being is involved in the being of the child. God said, “Can a mother’s tender care cease toward the child she bear? Is it possible?” He said, “Yes. She may be forgetful, but I will never forget you” (Isaiah 49:15). When we move in love, we are moving in the highest form of holiness that is revealed to man. That is, He gave us an idea. He said, “Love thinketh no evil” (I Corinthians 13:5). Love thinketh no evil. That is, this child is evil. This man is evil. He is doing wrong. He is doing everything that is contrary to God and to us. He is hurting you. He is killing you. He wishes you dead. You cannot think him evil. You cannot think, “Man, he needs a good wallop.” Isn’t that the way we sometimes feel? Yes. “That guy needs a good wallop to set him straight.” What he needs is love. Now, if we get to the stage where we can impart the love of God to someone who is not lovely, who is away from love, who is cruel, who is doing harm, then we will have risen above the human realm. Remember, He said “pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father…” children of love (Matthew 5:44-45). That is what He is talking about. If you can pray for someone who is hurting you, then you have attained unto a higher level of human behavior than what is natural.
I went to God one time and I was honest. I said, “God, you know I cannot love this man. I just cannot love him.” I didn’t want to say, “I hate him.” I just couldn’t love him. But there is nothing between love and hate. Anything outside of love is hate. You know something? Even indifference is hate. You don’t care whether he lives or dies. You don’t care. People around you are dying and you don’t care. It means you are not walking in love. That is terrible, isn’t it? All of us would be guilty. Oh, yes. Some of us are so busy with our own business that we don’t care – people, neighbors, going to hell. You don’t care. How often have you gone out and seen a person that is bad, bad, bad and you feel compassion and start praying for him, “Have mercy on him”?
Love will cancel hate. Do you hear me? It will cancel out hate. There is somebody that hates you. He hates the very ground you walk on. He wishes you dead, but you get before him and the radiation of the love of God out of you cancels his hate. When he gets away from you, he feels a little different about you. Instead, what has really been happening is that hate is canceling our love. When you think of what God did for you… “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son” and His Son had to pay the price for sin which was horrible (John 3:16). I heard someone say the other day that He must have had every disease that you can think of that oppresses humanity. Jesus Christ must have been attacked by these diseases and He was able to overcome them. But He had to go through all this, and the worst part of it is that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Life of God, the Light, the Glory of God had to allow Himself to be put down by evil demons. You cannot imagine how hard that was for Him. When Jesus Christ called in the garden, “Let this cup pass from Me” (Matthew 26:39), He wasn’t saying that He didn’t want to save humanity any more. That is not what He was saying. He was saying, “Do I have to go through all this? Do I have to allow Myself to be taken by demons, by devils? Do I have to be taken down to hell?” The Bible says hell was made for the devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41). Hell was not made for man; but Jesus Christ allowed Himself to be taken by the very opposite of everything that He was, and we will call that death, and He was allowed to do that until God judged Him guiltless and He was redeemed from out of hell.
So, I am saying, brethren, that, when the Bible says, “God is love,” those three words, we will never be able to fully understand the immensity of the understanding of what it is that God is. He is therefore everything that is contrary to what we are. We are flesh and blood, darkness, sin, everything that is contrary to light, glory, power, strength, uplifting, and God says that He is going to make you love. God breathed into Adam and Adam became a living soul (Genesis 2:7) and then Adam died, so God is again breathing into us so that we might become living souls.
(Excerpt from The Omega Message, July 2005, pg. 35-36)
Thought for today: If you can pray for someone who is hurting you, then you have attained unto a higher level of human behavior than what is natural.
