I’m going to make a radical suggestion that will certainly upset my friends who believe that Christians are called to treat God’s enemies like friends.
Stop treating God’s enemies like friends.
“John! You stupid jerk! The Bible tells us to love our enemies!”
That’s right! Jesus himself told us to love our enemies and pray for the people who persecute us. He spent a few years showing us how to do that. Jesus was in the unique position of being alone on a planet FULL of adversaries. He had no earthly allies because He was the only righteous person to ever live. When Jesus was here, every human on Earth was God’s enemy.
So, how did Jesus love His enemies? Before I get to that, notice what He DID NOT do.
Jesus DID NOT welcome the pagans into his inner circle. The people closest to Christ were sold-out believers. His disciples were zealots who eventually proved they were willing to die for the gospel.
“John! You moron! What about Judas? Jesus loved Judas too!”
Thank you for bringing that up. Indeed, Jesus loved Judas as much as He loved all his other enemies. He loved everyone so perfectly that He did not allow Judas’ betrayal to affect His plans. He did NOT make accommodations for Judas’ sin. Jesus knew better than to allow His enemies to distract Him from His mission.
When Judas left the upper room on his mission to betray Jesus, notice that Jesus didn’t chase after him. Christ didn’t gather the other disciples to “pray for their brother.” They didn’t call a meeting to discuss how to make traitors feel more welcome. And after Judas hung himself, the Bible doesn’t mention that any of them attended his funeral.
The Bible explains that God “so LOVED the world” that He sent Jesus to save them. God sent His own Son to save His ENEMIES from death! That was Jesus’ single focus.
If the church is going to “love like Jesus” then we should pay attention to how Jesus loved. Jesus loved His enemies by STAYING FOCUSED ON HIS GOD-GIVEN MISSION. When the church starts accommodating God’s enemies, we aren’t loving like Jesus.
“John! You heartless imbecile! You’re saying the church shouldn’t care about people’s needs!”
I’m saying the church should stop letting needy people run the ministry. Jesus didn’t put Judas on the ministerial planning committee. The modern church not only welcomes Judas into Sunday morning services, we let him preach.
I’m saying Christians should stop engaging with pagans as if they are brothers and sisters in Christ. Scripture tells us that all people are wicked but we don’t believe that. We believe people are basically good. We believe following Jesus means “loving on” all the “messy, broken” people that we encounter. We don’t believe God has any enemies.
I’m saying we should stop treating God’s enemies like friends, because that’s not how Jesus loved.
Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: “The one I kiss is the man; arrest him.” Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, “Greetings, Rabbi!” and kissed him.
Matthew 26:48
One Response
I was having a really bad day UNTIL I read this! Thank you for, as usual, using humor to convey biblical truth. The Church is the problem with modern day Christianity, not the world. And the Church is the reason Christians are lacking any salt! So sad that many who “identify” as Christian have zero clue what it means or entails, and will be surprised to be denied heaven.