THE WILL TO LOVE - Vital Christianity

59“Your reactions to your enemy can hurt you more than your enemy can.” 1“Love your enemies, for they will tell you your faults.” 2–Benjamin Franklin–Hannah HurnardGod requires of those who follow Him to love our enemies as He does:“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes His sun to rise onthe evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Ifyou love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the taxcollectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doingmore than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as yourheavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:43-48).“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).What does Hemean by the word “perfect”?THE MEANING OF PERFECTIONWas Jesus referring to absolute sinlessness? Obviously not since He had earlier in HisSermon stated that one element of the blessedness of the citizen of the kingdom was that herecognized that he was “poor in spirit” (spiritually bankrupt), that he “mourned” for his sins andthat he “hungered and thirsted after righteousness,” which he obviously had not yet attained (Mt5:3-4,6).In the Old Testament when Moses speaks of being “blameless” he was referring to thefact that God’s people were not to worship other gods, not to become idolaters. To be “perfect”or “blameless” was to seek God first and to seek only Him with the whole heart.And Christian love is anchored in the very character of God Himself. Christians are tolove others, not as a man loves his friends, but as God loves. The standard that God has setbefore us is a love of which only God is capable.Divine love—agape—is love that loves without variableness. It is “unconquerablebenevolence, invincible goodwill.” It is a love whose source is found in the one loving ratherthan in who or what is being loved. It loves even when the object of love is hateful or unlovely. Itis moral love as distinguished from personal affection. “If we regard a person with agape, itmeans that no matter what that person does to us, no matter how he treats us, no matter if he