shhh it's a secret....

Got another bookcase from Big Lots today. Somehow I don't think it will be enough.... Over the weekend I got some cute plants & a plant stand for the front of the house. Last week Dave got 4 trees free from the city and planted them in the front yard. Our house is really coming along nicely. I'll take pics tomorrow and post them.

Have a great night!
Shelly


"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,” Matthew 5:44

I find it rather easy to love those who love me. I love my parents, my wife and children, and my friends—no problem. I also find it fairly easy to love myself. Problem is, as Benjamin Franklin once pointed out: "He that falls in love with himself will have no rivals."

So we are called by the Lord to love another class of humanity: our enemies. Yet how to do it? Do we convince ourselves that our enemies actually deserve such a blessing? Impossible!

Here's the key: God loved us "while we were yet sinners." We didn't deserve salvation, but God saved us anyway. We can do likewise with those who persecute us.

I think the great writer and defender of the faith G.K. Chesterton put it perfectly: "The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost." If we see our enemies only in terms of the hurt they've caused, we may just want to hurt back. If we see their true humanity, their likeness to ourselves, their belovedness in the eyes of God, and their essential lostness—as we too were lost—well, then how can we help but reach out in love?

Lord- This week please help me to love my enemies, and help me not only to love them and see them as You see them, but to be a blessing to them. I pray in the name of Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Pastor Hersch