Lesson 44

In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:1-12), our Lord Jesus prescribed 8 qualities in the character of the sons of God (Lesson 9).
One of the qualities of a mature son of God is that of "being merciful" (Matthew 5:5).

Blessed are the merciful,
     for they will be shown mercy.                                                    (Matthew 5:5)

If we are merciful to others, we will receive mercy in return, both from God and from man.
However, if we are unmerciful, we will not be shown mercy by God or by man (Matthew 18:21-35).

To show mercy is "to show love to another person where the other person deserves harsh treatment from us."
In other words, to show mercy is "to show love towards our enemies" (Luke 6:27-36).

Jesus said:
"But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.
"But love you enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back.
"Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because He is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.
"Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful."                      (Luke 6:27, 35-36)

E.g.
We are showing mercy when we do good to our enemies.
We are showing mercy when we cook food for our wayward son.
We are showing mercy when we support our parents who are still abuse us.

We are showing mercy when we pray for God's blessings upon the sister who likes to slander us.
We are showing mercy when we continue to help those who have been ungrateful to us from the good we had done to them.

Whenever we show mercy to another person, we are walking in love.
All acts of mercy are acts of love.
In order to be merciful, we must therefore know who to WALK IN LOVE towards our enemies.

To love another is "to do good to another."

E.g. When we pay our employees on time because they have earned their wages, we are showing love to them.
We are not showing mercy, because they deserved the wages we are paying to them, and not harsh treatment from us.

However, if an employee had taken many days unpaid leave, and yet we pay him a full month's wages because he needs the money, then we are showing mercy to him.

E.g. When we show our love to God by worshipping and serving Him, we are not showing mercy to God.
God deserves our worship and service, because he is our Creator God and our Savior God.
Moreover, God does not deserve harsh treatment from us, because He has not done us any wrong.

After the fall of Adam, all men have sinned against God.
As a result, all men deserve eternal condemnation from God.

But God, because of His great mercy, sent His Son to die in our place on the cross, so that we who believe in Jesus might have forgiveness of sins and eternal life (Ephesians 2:4-5).
God's love shown to us through Jesus Christ are therefore all acts of mercy, for they are shown to men who deserved His judgment rather His blessings.

But because of His great love for us, God who is rich in MERCY, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions - it is by grace you have been saved.                                                (Ephesians 2:4-5)

As children of God, we must act like God and bring glory to His name.
Because God is good to His enemies (including all of us at one point, before we know Him), we likewise must love our enemies.
In other words, we must always love those who deserve harsh treatment from us.
This is being merciful.

"Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful."                                (Luke 6:36)

Since all acts of mercy are also acts of love, the principles of walking in mercy are the same as those of walking in love.

To walk in love towards our enemies, we must know the following principles from God's word concerning WALKING IN LOVE:

In His word, God commands us to "love your neighbor as yourself."
This commandment is as important as the first commandment of God to love Him with all our being (Matthew 22:37-40).
In other words, a person who claims to love God and yet does not love his neighbor (wife, husband, parents, children, colleagues, fellow believers, etc) is deceiving himself (1 John 1:6-2:4, 9-10).

Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God will all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'
All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.
                                                                                                         (Matthew 22:37-40)

If we claim to have fellowship with Him (God) yet walk in darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.
The man who says, "I know Him," but does not do what He commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness.                                                                                   (1 John 1:6-2:4, 9-10)

Since loving others, including our enemies, is a command of God, we please the heat of God whenever we walk in love towards others.
Every time we obey God, God is pleased with us.
Every time we love others, we are living as true sons of God (Luke 6:35-36).

"But love your enemies, do good to them without expecting to get anything back.
Then your reward will be great, and you will be SONS OF THE MOST HIGH, because He is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.
"Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful."                            (Luke 6:35-36)

God is proud to call us His sons when we obey Him.
This was the affirmation of God the Father to the Lord Jesus when Jesus obeyed the Father and subjected himself to baptism in the River Jordan (Matthew 3:16-17).

As soon as Jesus was baptized, He went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on Him. And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased."
                                                                                                          (Matthew 3:16-17)

Since loving others is a command from God to all men, it is always possible for us to obey God and walk in love towards others all the time.

The secret is to remember that loving others is a choice we make through an act of the will, no matter how we feel.
We can always choose either to love or not to love.
And God wants us to choose to always walk in love, even when we do not feel like doing so many a time.
This is what the Spirit of God in us will prompt us to do all the time.

Your decision to love others should never be based on feelings.
Most of the time, our feelings can be sinful and they arise because the flesh or the sinful nature wants its ways.
Never follow after your feelings when they contradict God's word.
Always follow after the Spirit and walk in love (Galatians 5:22-26).

E.g. When we are hurt by others because of their wicked acts, their slander, their ungratefulness, etc, our bitterness and anger tell us to retaliate and not help those who have offended us.
However, God's word commands us to die to these sinful feelings that arises from the sinful nature.
Instead, God wants us to love even those who have hurt us.

E.g. When a married man meets a charming lady and is attracted to her, feelings of lust will arise within him.
His lustful feeling (not love) for the lady will tell him to betray his wife and commit adultery with the new woman in his life.
If he acts according to his feelings, he will not be walking in love towards God, towards his wife, or towards the other woman.

E.g. When Jesus was praying in the Garden  of Gethsemane concerning His impending death on the cross, his soul was in deep agony as He contemplated His coming suffering on the cross for the sins of the world (Matthew 26:36-46).
Nevertheless, He chose to obey God and walk all the way to the cross, because He loved the people of the world.
He did not follow His feelings.

Always remember that we are commanded to live by faith in God's word and not by our feelings.
Always choose to obey God's word, no matter how strong the feelings are that tell us to do the opposite.
"We live by faith, not by sight" (2 Corinthians 5:7).

Because of the imperfect world in which we are living in, all of us grow up with deep, hidden wounds, hurts and bitterness in our soul.
We have been wounded and hurt by the acts and words of parents, siblings, colleagues, loved ones, etc.

As a result, we have responded to others in the past out of our wounds and hurts.
All of us naturally find it hard to love others.
All our past hurts have caused us to be defensive and to be bound by our anger and wrong responses to others.

However, when Christ came into our life, He set us free from our past to love others.
He set us free by filling us with His love, forgiving us our sins, and giving us a new creation life through His word (John 8:31).

And it is only as we grow everyday in our knowledge and experience of the love of God in Christ that we can be truly set free to love others (1 John 4:19).
It is only as we are grounded and rooted in God's love that we will live from a life of love to love others (Ephesians 3:17-19).

To the Jews who believed Him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."                                                                   (John 8:31)

We love because he first loved us.                                                 (1 John 4:19)

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in LOVE, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the LOVE of Christ, and to know this LOVE that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.                                                                          (Ephesians 3:17-19)

If you are a husband who still loves to shout and yell at your wife and children, then you need to know more of the love of God.
If you are a wife who still tortures your husband with a quick temper, tantrums, sarcasm and criticisms, you need to meditate more on God's love for yourself.
If you easily get offended with the acts of your colleagues or workers, then it is doubtful that you truly know the depths of God's love for yourself.
If you are a believer who always feel hurt by other believers, then you need to free yourself from your defensiveness and insecurities through knowing God's love.

In fact, if you are not walking in love, God's word says that you do not know God (1 John 4:8).
You need to seriously and honestly examine your own life in the mirror of God's word if you are a person who loves to nag, criticize, back-bite, retaliate, resent, manipulate or bully your loved ones.

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.
Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 
                                                                                                                 (1 John 4:7-8)

We cannot live a life that is pleasing to God if we live independently of the Holy Spirit.
We cannot live a life of victory without the help of the Holy Spirit.
We cannot have the strength to bear witness to Jesus without the power of the Holy Spirit.
We cannot love others as God wants us to love without the love of the Holy Spirit.

We can only live a life of love and power when we are in total dependence on the Holy Spirit.
By ourselves, we can do nothing good or pleasing to God (John 15:5).

It is the Holy Spirit in us who give us God's power to do works of miracles in Jesus' name (Acts 1:8).
It is the Holy Spirit in us who gives us the love of God to love our enemies, wives, husbands, children, parents, colleagues, fellow believers, etc.
Streams of living water (the power and love of the Holy Spirit) will only flow from our life to touch others when we acknowledge our dependence on the Holy Spirit (John 7:38-39).

Jesus said:
I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me (Jesus) you can do nothing.
                                                                                                                     (John 15:5)

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.                                                                   (Acts 1:8)

"Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." By this He (Jesus) meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were later to receive.         (John 7:38-39)

Thus every believer needs to turn to God every day for a fresh measure of God's power and love to obey God's word.
We need to ask God every day for His love to love others.
We need to obey the Lord's instruction to ask our Father God to "Give us this day our daily bread" (Matthew 6:11).
It is a daily dependence on the help of God.

And when we are able to love others with God's love, we must never boast about it.
Instead, we must give God all the glory for His love that is flowing through us to touch others.

Therefore always die to the flesh and follow after the Spirit's leading, after we have turn to God daily in prayer for His power and love (Galatians 5:16-23).

So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desire what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature.
But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.                                                     (Galatians 5:16-17, 22-23)

The quality of love is the best measure of the maturity of a believer.
The more a believer walks in God's love, the more he shines forth the likeness of Jesus. This is because God's word declares that "God is love" (1 John 4:8,16).

"God is love. Whoever lives in loves lives in God, and God in him" (1 John 4:16).
Of course, every believer has the Spirit of God living in him.
However, when we live in love, we are filled to the measure of all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:17-19).
A believer manifests the fullness of God when he consistently walks in love.
Such a believer is truly mature in Christ.

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in LOVE. may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the LOVE of Christ, and to know this LOVE that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the MEASURE OF ALL THE FULLNESS OF GOD.                                                       (Ephesians 3:17-19)

Conversely, if we do not walk in love, we are living after the flesh, living according to the sinful nature.
We are no longer expressing the character of a son of God.
Instead, we have become instruments of the devil, who is using us to kill, steal and destroy our loved ones and our neighbor (John 10:10).

When we walk in love, many around us may disagree.
However, we must not be afraid; rather, we must boldly obey God.

E.g. Many religious leaders may not be happy if you invite your long-haired, bare-chested, ring-in-the-ear friend to a church service.
E.g. Your wife may not agree with you if you helped an injured man on the road, taking him (in his bloody clothes) in your brand new car to the hospital.

Always remember: "There is no law against love" (Galatians 5:18,22).
God is always on the side of those who walk in love and do good (Mark 3:1-6).

Your thought

1. Why do we find it so hard to walk in love towards those who live closest to us? 
   

2. Have you been unkind to, angry at, criticize, or curse your husband/wife/siblings/children recently? Why? Why is it wrong in God's sight?
   What concrete steps should you take to walk in love towards your loved ones instead?
   

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