| Garden of the Heart |
Chapter 6 |
Page 5 |
Or take the other duty used by the Master in illustration – loving one’s neighbour. “Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.” Certainly – but they reserved the privilege of deciding who their neighbour was. He must be a congenial man, a man who belonged to the same set. He must be a man who would not fail to return kindness in a generous way, showing favour for favour. “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, and pray for them that persecute you.” The words are quite familiar to us, but do we try to live them any more than the Jews in our Lord’s time did? How many of us really love our enemies? How many of us actually pray for those who persecute us? That is what we must do if we are going to learn our lesson: “Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
It is easy enough to love certain people and to be kind to them. It is easy in our evening prayer to ask God to bless those who have been kind to us during the day, who have spoken approvingly or encouragingly to us, who have helped us over the hard places, whose love had brightened the way for us; but is it as easy to pray for the man who was angry with us, the one who spoke falsely of us, or the other who refused the favour we asked and tried to injure us? Yet that is the way the lesson runs: “Love your enemies, and pray for them that persecute you.” When we have learned really to do these things, we are drawing very near to God. Then the word is being fulfilled in us: “Ye shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” But while we still hate others, while we are bitter against them, or while we are envious or grudging, we have made little progress toward perfection. “For if ye love them that love you, what rewards have ye? Do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? Do not even the Gentiles the same?”
Here we have the test question of Christian living: “What do ye more than others?” It is not enough that Christians shall be just as good as other people, – Christ expects them to be better. What are people Christians for, if not to do more than others? “Ye therefore shall be perfect.”
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