Love Your Enemies (Luke 6:27) | Epiphany 7 (Series C) | Lectionary Sketch

 

"Love Your Enemies" No. 1 (2025), Digital Drawing (Procreate)

"Love Your Enemies" No. 2 (2025), Digital Drawing (Procreate)

Luke 6:27–38

²⁷ “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, ²⁸ bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. ²⁹ To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic² either. ³⁰ Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. ³¹ And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them. 
³² “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. ³³ And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. ³⁴ And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. ³⁵ But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. ³⁶ Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. 
³⁷ “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; ³⁸ give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.” 

Devotional Thought

In Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain, He teaches us the reverse of what people in a fallen world are inclined to do: love your enemies, do good to them, pray for them. Jesus’ words can be hard for us. But Jesus is not asking us to do something that He has not first done for us. Our sin made us enemies of God. “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation" (Rom. 5:8–11). He accomplished our salvation while we were enemies. That is how much Christ loves us. Now He has drawn us close into the family of God. So then, loving our enemies is a gift from God. It comes from Christ, God in the flesh, working through us. We have been reconciled first by Christ who has loved us so much that He went to the cross.