Who is my enemy?
Today’s devotion builds on the thoughts from Sunday’s Sermon – Week 4 of “Fan or Follower – Deal with Division” (LISTEN HERE).
“You have heard that it was said, “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
In Jesus’ ministry there was an individual who felt he had done pretty well at keeping the law of God. He felt he was loving God with all his heart, soul, mind and strength. However, he wanted to make sure he was doing well at “love your neighbor as yourself.” When he asked, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus responded with the parable of the Good Samaritan. The answer? Anyone who has a need is my neighbor and is an opportunity to love.
How come Jesus didn’t teach a parable on “Who is my enemy?”
I wish he did because that is the question that comes up in my mind to “justify” how well I am doing at what Jesus teaches in Matthew 5:43-44.
Maybe the parable of the Good Samaritan would answer the question as well.
However, who is your enemy?
We know from Jesus’ teaching who is NOT our enemy.
Jesus said “If you love those who love you, what reward will you get?” (Matthew 5:46)
An enemy is not someone who will love you back. So an enemy is someone who is hard to love because you KNOW there will be no loving response back. The phrase, “Extra love opportunity” might apply to these situations.
We know from Jesus’ teaching who IS our enemy (or potentially our enemy).
Since this behavior (to love our enemies) is modeled by the Father, Jesus teaches that he loves the evil and the unrighteous.
So an enemy can be anyone who perpetrates or promotes evil and anyone who is not following the ways of the Lord (unrighteous).
The potential is that at any point in our lives, ANYONE can be our enemy. As sinful human beings, we all have the potential to enact evil and we all have done that which is unrighteous.
As always, Jesus digs deeper than the surface. An enemy is not just someone that serves in an opposing military against our military. An enemy is not just a criminal that seeks to do evil against us.
An enemy is any one who harms us physically, emotionally, or spiritually and against whom we are tempted to wish, perpetrate or feel evil or hatred against.
The question that will challenge us this week is when that “enemy” shows up in our lives will we seek revenge or seek to repair the relationship?
The temptation will be to seek revenge. The challenge will be to repair.
With the Lord’s help we will let go of revenge and repair with love.
Apply: What relationship in your life today would you classify as an “enemy” relationship? What are your thoughts and feelings about that person? How are you tempted to respond? How is God calling you to respond?
Prayer: Lord thank you for all the people in my life, even the ones that show up as enemies. For in these relationships I get to model the love you have shown to me. While we were still enemies (sinners) you loved me. Help me to do the same. AMEN.
Remember who and whose you are!
Today’s devotion builds on the thoughts from Sunday’s Sermon – Week 3 of “Fan or Follower – Practice Purity” (LISTEN HERE).
1 Corinthians 6:19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.
While I used this passage earlier in the week, I would like to finish with it.
When engaging in issues of gender, sex and marriage, remember who you are and whose you are.
You are a loved child of God.
Often times issues of gender and sex are sparked by a desire to be loved and accepted by others or even able to accept yourself. While I don’t remember the details, I remember the gist of a comment made by an individual who spent years in the homosexual community and now has left that life style and is honoring the Lord with his life.
He indicated that many of the men he ran into were traumitized sexually as kids/youth and simply looking for love and acceptance.
I have heard this more than once in regard to many in the LGBTQIA+ community. Some sexual trama has led them to find their identity, worth and significance in another identity or partnership.
On the one hand, who can blame them. The soul, the human spirit yearns to be loved and accepted and have value and worth.
The solution is shallow when we look outside the framework of God’s love and grace. So the Lord invites us to seek our identity in him as a dearly loved child of God.
Some may use this line of thinking as an excuse, “God wants me to be happy.” Yes, but the ultimate happiness is found when we simply trust we are fearfully and wonderfully made…as we are, not as we wish we could be. Happiness is found when we rest our identity in the blood of Christ, not in changing who we are or in who and how others accept us.
You are a precious soul who belongs to God.
You have ultimate value as you were made and created. The proof of this was the arms of Jesus outstretched on the cross for you. He redeemed you, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death, that I may be His own and live under Him in His kingdom and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, just as He is risen from the dead, lives and reigns to all eternity. (Luther’s explanation to the 2nd Article of the Apostles’ Creed)
I know these issues can get complicated, but Paul grounds us in our thinking and understanding to realize that we don’t need to change genders to be loved and accepted or find our true self, we need to find love, acceptance and our true self in our Savior and the Spirit of God who dwells in us. We don’t need to give our bodies to buy a friend or satisfy a sexual craving or prove to someone our beauty and worth. We give our lives to the Lord who will never leave us or forsake us, will always love us and always be there for us. And when the time is right or as we have been blessed with a spouse, we can thank God for the gift of a spouse willing to commit their lives to us.
Gender, sex and marriage are a gift of God and, as with any blessing, God desires to give you the ultimate happiness and joy through his design for them.
Apply: What happens when you find your identity and value in the Lord?
Prayer: Lord thank you for giving of yourself to purchase us. You prove to us our value. Thank you Spirit of God for taking up residence in our heart. You give our life meaning. Thank you Father for calling me your child. You give me my identity. AMEN.
Are you having sex?
Today’s devotion builds on the thoughts from Sunday’s Sermon – Week 3 of “Fan or Follower – Practice Purity” (LISTEN HERE).
Hebrews 13:4 Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.
Years ago I was privileged to have a few seminary students as interns at the church I served. Part of this year was to provide experiences that exposed the student to different ministry situations. One such occasion allowed the intern to sit in on premarriage counseling sessions with a couple that had asked me to do their wedding.
Whenever a couple comes to me and asks me to do their wedding, I am up front with them and say, “You are coming to me because you want to honor God with your wedding, your marriage and your relationship.” So one of the sessions we talk about honoring God with the gift of sex. So in this session, I bluntly asked the couple, “Are you having sex?”
The intern almost fell off his chair. Red cheeks on the couple and an intern a bit startled provided the setting for encouragement about the use of sex as God designed it, in the context of a committed, married relationship.
Readers, you may not find yourself in a pre-marriage counseling session, and It may be awkward at times to have conversations about this with someone, but let the truth from Hebrews 13:4 resonate in your heart.
Marriage should be honored by all and the marriage bed kept pure.
Sex is for marriage. Period.
Our society uses sex as entertainment, self-gratification, and a way to gain friends or a following online. All are sexual immorality.
Couples live together before they are married and justify having sex as they are “consenting adults.” For those that aren’t married, living together, or considering living together before marriage, let me offer some research on what marriage looks like after cohabitating.
“There is a 20% chance of a first marriage resulting in divorce within five years. In comparison, couples who cohabit for five years have a 49% chance of separating. Similarly, married couples have a 33% chance of divorce within 10 years, whilst cohabiting couples have a 62% chance of splitting up in this timeframe. These statistics indicate that married couples are likely to remain together longer than couples who choose to cohabit but do not marry.” https://hackspirit.com/infidelity-statistics/#What_do_the_numbers_say
What is the point of sharing all this? Emotionally, relationally, spiritually, God’s direction about sex is the best way. He designed men and women biologically to have and enjoy the sexual relationship. However, it’s not just about the biology, it is also about sharing an emotional and spiritual companionship with your spouse. One-night stands, uncommitted living together, or hook ups disregard the full physical, emotional, and spiritual intimacy that God designed for a married couple to foster and enjoy. Sex is a gift. It’s a wonderful part of a marriage. Enjoy it, guilt free, disease free, emotionally free in the context of your marriage.
If you are unmarried, wait. Don’t give your body to a person who will walk out the next morning. Don’t sell yourself to pleasure another selfish person. You are valuable and honorable. Don’t degrade yourself to the sinful pleasures of another.
Perhaps not the way you were expecting to begin your day! However, as with all the teaching and direction God gives, he gives them for our blessing and enjoyment of life. Keep the marriage bed pure and honor God with your bodies.
Apply: What is one way you can honor the Lord’s design for sex and marriage?
Prayer: Lord, thank you for all the blessings you give, including the gift of sex. Give me strength to overcome temptations to improperly use this gift. As you gift me with a spouse, may we enjoy this gift together. As I wait for the gift of a spouse, lead me to honor you and my body by not giving in to temptation that diminishes or degrades the gift of sex. AMEN.
It won’t happen to me.
Today’s devotion builds on the thoughts from Sunday’s Sermon – Week 3 of “Fan or Follower – Practice Purity” (LISTEN HERE).
It won’t happen to me.
“You shall not commit adultery.”
Check. Got that commandment, just like I got #5, “You shall not kill.”
“I’ve never murdered anyone and I’ve never committed adultery.”
Here’s the warning: “So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! 13 No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it” (1 Corinthians 10:12-13).
No one is immune to the temptations of adultery or other sexual sins. We are sexual beings and our sinful nature wants to move and use those urges for selfish, sinful purposes.
Never underestimate what your sinful nature can lead you to do. Here’s some eye-opening statistics from a 2022 report from the LA Intelligence detective agency:*
– 30 to 60 percent of married couples will cheat at least once in the marriage
– 74 percent of men and 68 percent of women admit they’d cheat if it was guaranteed they’d never get caught
– 60 percent of affairs start with close friends or coworkers
– An average affair lasts 2 years
– 69 percent of marriages break up as a result of an affair being discovered
The cause: Often the reason is deficiency in marriages. The other person paid more attention. They were bored in the relationship. The spouse stopped paying attention. Questions and doubts arose relationship.
The door was open for Satan to get a foothold. Is your door open for temptation?
How does the temptation come: As one author put it, the main reason people in relationships cheat is “when one’s need for self-gratification outweighs their need for intimacy.”
“In other words, the desires of the moment and lust for immediate satisfaction temporarily outpaces their desire to be respectful and loyal to the love and relationship they have waiting at home. It’s not always some big problem going on: in many cases it’s plain temptation and the heat of the moment.”*
Jesus understands that the door doesn’t start wide open with an adulterous relationship. He alerts us that the door gets open when we lust at a woman or man not our own.
Matthew 5:28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
While the temptation is perhaps greater for men, women are not immune from it. Our world understand the power of sex to sell in advertising, to solicit in entertainment districts, to look at online, to arrange with an app, and to find readily available online or at the stops along the interstates. 1 in 20 websites are pornographic. What was once covered with cardboard on a magazine rack is readily available at the click of a button. In 2019, 115 million people visited a single pornographic website…in one day! The door gets cracked open and Satan gets a foot hold. Lusting at an image is the same as having sex with that person.
Sex is a great blessing from the Lord. He created us to have it and enjoy it in the context of a committed lasting marriage relationship. One need just look at the consequences of one committing adultery, addicted or recreational porn use, and other sexual perversions from God’s standard and norm.
King Solomon put it this way:
Proverbs 6:27 Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned? 28 Can a man walk on hot coals without his feet being scorched? 29 So is he who sleeps with another man’s wife; no one who touches her will go unpunished.
Proverbs 6:32 But a man who commits adultery has no sense; whoever does so destroys himself.
So it is great advice from God’s Spirit to your soul:
1 Corinthians 6:18 Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. 19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.
God has given us a sexual body to enjoy with the spouse he has or will chose to give us. Flee from temptation. Don’t give Satan a foothold. Run to the Spirit of God for strength to live in purity over perversion.
Apply: What sexual temptation is readily available? What must you do to flee from it?
Prayer: Spirit of God, thank you for dwelling in my heart and soul…my body. Strengthen me with the love of the Father, the forgiveness of Jesus, and your power to flee temptations to sin sexually and life a life of purity to the honor of my God. AMEN.
What is normal?
Today’s devotion builds on the thoughts from Sunday’s Sermon – Week 3 of “Fan or Follower – Practice Purity” (LISTEN HERE).
What is normal?
Perhaps this is the wrong question to ask.
Normal can change. What was “normal” to wear in the 1980’s would probably be looked at as “abnormal” today – unless it was “80s” theme during Homecoming Week.
Something becomes normal when enough people embrace the activity so that those who do the activity are more than those who don’t, or enough do the activity so that it becomes “normalized,” i.e. accepted as “normal” behavior.
Perhaps a better question is, “What was the original?”
The quick follow-up question is, “Who made the original?”
The term “perversion” has an interesting meaning. Perversion is “the alteration of something from its original course, meaning, or state to a distortion or corruption of what was first intended.”
This term is helpful for our reflection on gender, sex and marriage this week. It leads us back to seek the answer to the question, “What was the original?” and “What was first intended?”
For those with a secular humanistic worldview, this question is difficult to answer since there is no origin or originator on these matters. Our culture today is easier to understand when you allow for evolutionary thought to be the “answer” to these questions, it allows for any and every manifestation of gender, sex and marriage. (We must be aware that “evolution” is not just a “theory of origins,” it is indicative of a worldview without a divine creator. The ramifications are legion.)
For those with a biblical worldview, the answer to these questions becomes very concrete.
The originator? “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1). God is the originator.
What was the original?
In regard to gender…Genesis 1:27 “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” Two genders, male and female, were the originals.
In regard to the question of which gender can have children, Genesis 3:16 answers that question, “To the woman he said, “I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children.” (Child bearing took on greater difficulty as a result of sin.)
In regard to marriage…Genesis 2:24 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, ….” One man and one woman committed to the Lord and to each other constituted marriage.
In regard to sex…Again Genesis 2:24 “…and they (a married couple of one man and one woman) will become one flesh.”
This is pretty straight forward and clearly laid out by the Lord.
Gender is not fluid. Marriage is not any combination of genders cohabitating. Sex is not to done for self-gratification with multiple partners.
Does our culture agree? No. Does our culture allow for “perversion” from the original? Yes. While many perversions of the original are legal in our country, as a follower of Jesus, our desire is to experience the blessing of the original.
So where does perversion come from?
1 John 2:16 For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world.
Like every aspect of life, these issues are at the core a spiritual issue. Will I seek to honor the Lord in regard to gender, sex and marriage, or will I seek to please myself? I pray in all things we will seek to honor the Lord, even when doing so is challenging AND not normal.
Apply: What clarity do you receive when you go back to God’s original on these issues?
Prayer: Lord God, what you created and designed was perfect. Sin has perverted your design in many ways. Forgive us for our role in that perversion. Purify us by your grace and enable us to follow you in purity in regard to gender, sex and marriage. AMEN.