Lesson 25: God’s Sovereignty Makes Us More Loving

Matthew 5:43-44,46 "You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?"

These verses contain the most effective way of getting rid of our enemies - by loving them. How many of us would like to have more friends and fewer enemies? The problem is that we do not want to love our enemies. In fact, if we are honest with ourselves, half of the time if we do get around to praying for them, we are praying that God would destroy them! But what did we read? Anybody can hate an enemy; that is no big challenge. But Jesus challenges us to show this world that we are true disciples by loving those who do not love us. Every time we refuse to love the unlovable in life, we are acting no different from the world. Then nobody will believe us when we talk about the love of Jesus because we refuse to demonstrate His love by our actions. We refuse to give it out!

But God orchestrates a few difficulties and a few difficult people to come our way, and we get to practice loving people, again and again and again until we get it right. It is like that movie where the man had to live the same day over and over again until he got it right. It is the same thing with us. God will allow us to keep on facing difficulties and difficult people until we learn how to love.

God is not being mean; rather He is trying to use us to show His love to an unloving world, because that is what our world needs. If we are to get out of the pit of despair we are in, it will not be from talking about love, but in doing something about it like Jesus did:


"A man fell into a pit and could not get himself out. So a subjective person came along and said, 'I feel for you down there.'

Then an objective person walked by and said, 'It is logical that someone would fall down there.'

A self-righteous person said, 'Only bad people fall into pits.

And Jesus, seeing the man, took him by the hand and loved him by lifting him out of the pit.”

Nothing is more comforting to me than knowing that no matter what I go through in life, it has occurred because, and only because, God has filtered it for my highest good. Therefore, even though I may not see it or understand it at that time, it must serve a good and loving purpose because it came directly from the hand of a good and loving God. Knowing something as basic as God is Sovereign really makes a difference in people's lives.

We have an awesome message we get to tell others: "God not only exists, but through Jesus Christ you really can have an intimate personal relationship with the Creator of the universe."

* Do people who know you believe your message that God loves them through your example of love?