Good Morning Friends,
Life is frequently unfair. Our passage from 1 Kings points that out. Bad things happen to good people and their families. Brutality and injustice are all around us. And we wonder why. Initially we submit to the reality that God’s purpose is beyond us, and God’s ways are above our ways. But Jesus prompts us to be more for the sake of the Kingdom of God. So out of Jesus’ teaching we explore the perfect example of perfect love as the path for loving enemies, turning the other cheek, and discovering the blessing in being persecuted for the cause of Christ. And in so doing hopefully gain an answer to today’s question about character development. So, Can We Love Unconditionally In A Wicked World, Becoming Children Of The Father Who Loves His Enemies?
Scripture Summary of 1 Kings 21:17–29
After Ahab and Jezebel orchestrate Naboth’s death to seize his vineyard, God sends Elijah to confront Ahab. Elijah declares God’s judgment: Ahab is guilty of murder and theft, and his dynasty will fall like the corrupt houses of Jeroboam and Baasha. Dogs will lick Ahab’s blood in the same place they licked Naboth’s, and Jezebel will be eaten by dogs in Jezreel. The text emphasizes that Ahab, influenced by Jezebel, was uniquely devoted to evil and idolatry. Yet when Ahab hears the prophecy, he tears his clothes, puts on sackcloth, fasts, and walks in humility. God notices this genuine repentance and delays the full judgment. The disaster will still come, but in the days of Ahab’s son, not during Ahab’s lifetime. God confronts Ahab’s injustice, announces severe judgment, but responds with surprising mercy when Ahab humbles himself.
Scripture Summary of Matthew 5:43–48
Jesus overturns the common assumption that love is owed only to one’s neighbor. He commands His followers to love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them. This reflects the character of God, who gives sun and rain to both the righteous and the unrighteous. Loving only those who love us is ordinary; enemy-love is the mark of God’s children. Jesus concludes by calling His disciples to be “perfect”, whole, mature, complete, in love, just as the Father is. Jesus calls His followers to reflect God’s generous, indiscriminate love by loving even their enemies.
Message: There is a moment in the Sermon on the Mount when Jesus stops sounding merely challenging and begins sounding impossible. Loving enemies is not a refinement of ordinary morality, it is a complete reorientation of the heart. And Jesus places this command at the climax of His reinterpretation of the Torah because it reveals the deepest truth about God Himself. When Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you…” Jesus is not correcting Scripture; He is correcting the human instinct to shrink the circle of love to those who are like us, agree with us, or treat us well. The Torah never commands hatred of enemies. That was a cultural addition, an instinctive narrowing of neighbor-love to something manageable. But Jesus refuses to let love be manageable. He roots enemy-love not in human fairness but in divine generosity: “Your Father makes His sun rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” Sun and rain, life itself, are given indiscriminately. God does not ration His kindness. He does not always wait for repentance before He gives gifts. He does not withhold goodness until the world behaves. His love is not reactive; it is creative. It moves first. And Jesus says: That is what God’s children look like. This is the heart of the passage. Enemy-love is not a heroic moral achievement; it is a family resemblance. When we love those who harm us, pray for those who persecute us, and seek the good of those who oppose us, we are not being extraordinary, we are being God’s children. We are participating in the very love that saved us, because God loved us while we were still His enemies. Today we look at this restoration of the image of God in humanity. To love enemies is to return to our original vocation: to reflect God’s character into the world. It is the kind of love that breaks cycles of retaliation, heals fractured communities, and reveals a kingdom not built on power but on cruciform love. And then Jesus says the line that has troubled many: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” But the Greek word teleios does not mean flawless. It means whole, complete, mature. Jesus is calling us to a love that is not partial or selective, a love that is whole like God’s love is whole. A love that does not stop at the boundaries of comfort or affinity. A love that refuses to let the enemy set the terms of the relationship. This is not a command we obey by willpower. It is a transformation we undergo by grace. Only those who have been loved in their own unloveliness can love like this. Only those who have been forgiven can forgive. Only those who have been embraced as enemies can embrace their enemies. Enemy-love is not the burden of the Christian life; it is the evidence of the new life Jesus gives.
And So, the question is not, “Can we love unconditionally?” The deeper question is, “Will we let God make us into people who can? C.S. Lewis put it plainly: “Every Christian is to become a little Christ.” That is the heart of Jesus’ command. Loving enemies is not about moral heroism, it is about becoming the kind of person the Spirit is making us to be.
And Dostoevsky reminds us why this matters: “Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.” Real love costs something. But it is precisely this costly love that reveals God’s presence in a wicked world. Today we have scripture that speaks to each other. And resonates with the story of the Good Samaritan we explored on Sunday. In Ahab, we see the justice of God, a justice that refuses to ignore oppression, violence, or idolatry. In Jesus’ teaching, we see the mercy of God,a mercy that reaches even to enemies. Together they reveal a God who is both perfectly just and perfectly loving. And they reveal our calling: to be people who reflect God’s heart in a world that knows little of either justice or mercy. We are not asked to excuse evil. Elijah didn’t. We are not asked to pretend injustice doesn’t matter. God didn’t. But we are asked to love in a way that refuses to let evil have the final word.
Pray Father, that You make us whole in love. Pray You heal the fractures in our hearts that make us withhold compassion. Pray You teach us to pray for those who wound us, to bless those who oppose us, and to love with the same generous, uncalculating love that You have poured out on us in Christ. Pray You make us Your children in truth, bearing Your likeness in a world desperate for Your mercy. Amen.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 