"I say these things that you may be saved."
John 5:34 (NKJV)
You probably won't be surprised to learn that the preceding words belong to Jesus. His life's mission was to save people, so we would expect Him to say this. However, it might surprise you to learn whom He was talking to. If we back up a few verses, we discover the identity of His audience:
Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God.
(John 5:18 NKJV)
When Jesus said, "I say these things that you may be saved,"
Jesus was talking to the Jewish leaders who were committed to killing Him. It doesn't require much imagination to envision what you or I might have said under the same circumstances. Chances are, we wouldn't be expending the effort to save them! But this shows us a remarkable reality about the heart of Jesus:
He always had compassion for His persecutors, even when they were in the very act of persecuting Him!
Go back and read through the gospels, and you will find that even in His most heated confrontations with the Jews, Jesus was doing all He could to save them from the self-destructive course they had chosen for themselves.
It's an amazing love that will reach out to save a hand that has become a clenched fist. Yet this is the love that Jesus demonstrated throughout His life, and it was most profoundly seen as He prayed for the forgiveness of those who were nailing Him to the cross!
When Jesus tells us to love our enemies, we kind of cringe because we know that He actually did it and expects us to do the same. Before we say, "No way!" we need to remember that we don't love our enemies with our own love but with the love of Jesus as it's poured out upon us from heaven (Romans 5:5).
Let's allow His love to infiltrate our hearts, and let's strive to save the people who persecute us.
Discuss a time when you felt you were treated unfairly. How did you respond?
Dig into Romans 5:6–11. Who is identified as Jesus’ enemies? How does that make you feel?
Decide to make a private list of your perceived “enemies.” Beside each name, add an action point for loving the person with Christ’s love. It could be as simple as praying for the person or something more difficult such as treating him or her to coffee.
Tags: "Devotion with Emotion", Bible, Bob Coy, Christianity, Devotional, Jesus, Last Call, Michael James Stone,Sharon,
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