Matthew 5:43-48 (ESV)
"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' [44] But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, [45] so that you may be sons of your Father who is 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. [46] For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? [47] And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? [48] You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Here Christ wraps it up. The whole point of this sermon, you have to be perfect like your heavenly Father. And as the old saying goes, no one is perfect. You aren’t. I’m not. So quit pretending. And when we quit pretending, when we are able to see who we really are, well then, it gets a bit easier to pray for those who persecute you, do good to those who malign you. Not because it makes us perfect, but because our perfection is in Jesus Christ.
2 comments:
Would you be willing to elaborate just a little on your comments about Calvinism (found here - http://thoughts-brigitte.blogspot.com/2009/09/troelsch.html?showComment=1252422263990#c2444414621651115356). As a forrmer Lutheran - and now a Calvinist - I would be intererested.
Dieter,
What exactly would you like me to elaborate on. After centuries of Reformed, ie Calvinist, aggression in Germany, even the churches that think of themselves as Lutheran tend to be reformed. So the attack that Lutherans are statist and therefore are the ones to blame for Hitler's easy take over of Germany is pretty ludicrous. You could read some of the books I mentioned in that post. But if you have any specific questions about that I'd be happy to answer them when I get a chance. I'm not going to be around much the next few days though.
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