Love Your Enemies!

I was reading through the book of Matthew this week and I came across the excerpt when Christ spoke about God's true earnest Love. Now the few verses I'm going to share with you will not sound new, I guarantee you've heard them before. But I feel like so often in our lives we forget the important message Christ delivered to us. OK so here are the four verses I want you all to meditate on for a little while and ask yourself if you have truly been abiding to the commandment of Love. Matthew 5: verse 43 "Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou Shalt Love Thy Neighbor And Hate Thine Enemy," verse 44 " But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully Use you and Persecute you" verse 55 "That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven:" verse 46 "For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans do the same?" When I read over this, I instantly remembered the harships I went through last year! For the longest time my heart didn't quite intertwine with God's true Love. I just held grudges against people who didn't respect me, or treat me fairly. So to tell you more about this I'd like to share some of my testimony with you. I believe it will encourage you and maybe even help you with your situation. Last year at school I hung out with the wrong crowd, these guys were not exactly Jesus lovers! They were quite worldly, living in malice, strife, envy and lust. And for so long I allowed them to bring me down. You see I had Christ and these guys didn't, But if you were to put us side by side you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between them and me. Thankfully over time God drew me back to Him and now this time I'm with Him to stay. Anyways, a few of the guys I hung out with last year started doing some pretty brutal and hateful things to me once I decided to turn my life around and seek Christ. My so called friends began to show their true colors and feeling towards me. These men knew exactly who I chose to live for and they didn't respect my heavenly father or me at all. And whenever they got the chance to persecute me and judge me, they took hold of that opportunity consistently. The last 4 months I lived with them I continued to hold in all my anger and hate towards them! So often when I had be in the same room as them , the Anger would conquer my heart and emotions and deep down all I wanted to do was to bash their faces in because of the humiliation and hurt they had been putting me through. Overtime God molded my heart and set me free from anger and taught me about His Love and Mercy! How to forgive those who curse me and to pray for those who hate me. Now your situation may not be quite like mine was but if your struggling with loving those around you, or if you haven't yet forgiven someone who may have hurt you, remember what He did for you! All throughout our lives we will have people judging us, persecuting us, cursing us and using us. But guess what! We have a Savior who died for us, who loves us, who desires us and most of all who forgave us. While we were murdering Him in cold blood, Christ said "Father forgive them they know not what they do". So let us strive to be like Him each day, to forgive and love those who hate us and persecute us. Let us Love our ENEMIES together as we journey throughout this world. My brothers and sisters let the Peace of Christ dwell in your heart each day, so that He may use you to accomplish His commandment of Love! Seek Him diligently so that The Love of Christ may pour abundantly throughout your Heart. Stick out and be the Light!