Luke 6:35 (nasb) --- But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men.
That is a powerful verse. This past Sunday I shared a message with our church in the series 40 Days of Love where we talked about loving people who don't love us in return. Lots of the time these people do things to hurts us, and God still calls us to love them.
Love at a couple of the things that Jesus says in the verse above:
LOVE YOUR ENEMIES ... not easy, but always right. The enemy may be the person who actually you don't like and doesn't like you. Or it could be the person that person just that you don't click with or care for. It could even be a person you don't often think about. Loving your enemy means that you do good things and don't do bad things. Think about it. How do you love someone?
DO GOOD ... LEND ... there ya go. Pretty easy to define that one. Yet doing good to people we have had a fight with doesn't sound right. God calls us to do things that the world doesn't call normal. God calls us to take a higher road. It is the road and way marked by love.
EXPECTING NOTHING IN RETURN ... here is the strangest part of all. Cause relationships are all the time marked by 'give and take'. You do this and I will do that. But God calls us to love unconditionally without any thought of return.
We are gearing up for the 9-11 Day of Service & Remembrance where we do SERVolution projects. It is all about sharing the love of God without any strings attached. It is about giving and not getting. It is about lifting people no matter what.
Here's my big thought for the day: do things expecting nothing in return, and God will return all kinds of favor to you. All that happens because we put Jesus in first place in our lives. I like it. Let's do it!
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