29 May 2010
Psalm 30, 32; Prov. 25:15-28; 1 Tim. 6:6-21; Matt. 13:36-43

If your enemies are hungry, give them bread to eat; and if they are thirsty, give them water to drink; for you will heap coals of fire on their heads, and the Lord will reward you. Jesus says we are to love our enemies, calls us to a higher standard of love than it seems evident in the commandments but it is fully in keeping with this proverb. The way of the cross is the way of loving your enemies. Paul says that Jesus died for us while we were yet enemies of the cross and Paul should know, he was one of those enemies. Loving your enemies was modeled by Jesus in self-sacrficial love and yet at the same time, He was willing to engage in some rough dialogue with them because truth matters. We need to know and maintain the truth in our love. We cannot love someone without telling them the truth about themselves, about God and about eternal life in Christ alone. It is not loving to leave out important information about eternity.

It is truly comforting to know that in the end even the causes of sin will be destroyed. What will it seem like to love someone or something intrinsically and not for some potential benefit for ourselves? I think that the love we now have will seem petty compared to the true love with which God loves us and loves His creation. It will break our hearts to see how well we could have loved and been loved. When all my selfishness and desires find their fulfillment and I am set free from that tangled mess of self-absorption and concern for the future I wonder what real life will be like.

Paul warns Timothy about keeping his focus. Temptations of the world, particularly the desire for wealth, are in view. The love of money is the root of all evil, he says. Have truer words ever been spoken? I know that as a young man I was willing to cut corners and take shortcuts if it brought me closer to my goals of having more money and making more money. I was willing to overlook ethical problems in order to get where I wanted to go and I paid a price by taking a job with a man I didn’t trust who later committed fraud to further his own agenda. He offered me the golden apple and I took it, later to spend nearly two years searching for work due to our association. The only fix is to keep our eyes fixed on Him and to learn and know with everything in us that there is nothing that has greater worth than what He has promised.

Sing praises to the LORD, O you his saints,
and give thanks to his holy name.
For his anger is but for a moment,
and his favor is for a lifetime.
Weeping may tarry for the night,
but joy comes with the morning.