# 30 2016 Dev. Mt. 5:48. The purpose of these devotionals is to draw closer to God by memorizing selected passages of Scripture. Further, to view the passage in context and grow spiritually by applying His Word to our daily living with family, friends and others. All passages are taken from the NIV.
Matthew 5:48
“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
We have been looking at Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount” Mt.5-7. The verse we see today (vs.48) is in a larger section of the Jesus’ instruction called “Love for Enemies”. Think about the title! Jesus is turning religious thinking of His day and the thinking of today upside down. There is no rationalization today that would suggest that we should love our enemies. In our political climate today enemies are quickly established, in our society today enemies are many, in our religious culture today fellow Christians often are the enemy! The reality of today is such that different views and different interpretations are being forced on those who disagree; there is no tolerance for dissenting believers or dissenting opinions.
In God’s realm all people and all of His creation belongs to Him and He wants to be glorified. He is not looking for clones, He wants all people to honor Him in diversity and respect His creation that highlight the riot of diversity we see all around us. Today the ability to “agree to disagree” is lacking among followers of Jesus and in society in general. We no longer are allowed to act on or speak about following our conscience because it is now deemed as a hate crime or hate speech if that disagrees with the majority opinion.
How then are we to be perfect as our verse commands? The verse points back to what goes before it Mt. 5:43-47. In the covenant of Jesus’ blood, we are not allowed to hate!
We are starting to see that “the New Testament is in the Old Testament contained and the Old Testament is in the New Testament explained”. Love those who hate us, love those who oppose us and love those who seek to hurt us. “Love Wins”. Love wins not only because it gives light to our enemies but it puts us together with Jesus as “children of God”. Wow! We are perfect only when we live in Jesus’ presence, He perfects us, faith in Jesus covers us with perfection in God’s eyes as it was in Abraham’s time (Gen 17:1). Loving our enemies in Jesus’ name is glorifying to God our Father, lights up the dark places of our world and draws us closer to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the God of Scripture. Praise be to God!
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