“Therefore You Shall Be Perfect”

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.

Matthew 5:43-48

Jesus spoke the words from the Sermon on the Mount not to frustrate us, but to tell us what God is like.

Why should we love our enemies? Because our merciful Father causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good.

Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount not only to explain God’s ideal toward which we should never stop striving but also to show that in this life none of us will ever reach that ideal.

Before God, we all stand on level ground: murderers and tantrum-throwers, adulterers and lusters, thieves and coveters. We are all desperate, and that is the only state appropriate to a human being who wants to know God. Having fallen from the absolute ideal, we have nowhere to land but in the safety net of abundant grace.

Only God can transform a sinful soul into a masterpiece

of absolute grace.

Our Daily Bread – June 11, 2016