46. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47. And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?
People understood what is meant to love but restricted their love to family and friends. This concept of loving one’s enemy seemed so foolish. All throughout the Old Testament the prophets told of the enemy and how they were to be hated, be separated, and annihilated.
Jesus was going around telling of a different type of love. It went beyond current teachings to see God in a different light as One who so loves the world - not just His family, the Jews, or those godly who go to temple and synagogue, but loved even the unlovely and the sinner. Many people do not believe God really loves them.
D.L. Moody tells in his biography of returning from his preaching engagement when his wife encouraged him to come to a special meeting that an English preacher, Henry Moorhouse was having. She told him Moorehouse preached two sermons from John 3:16 on God's love, “although he preaches a little different from what you do. He tells sinners that God loves them.”
"Well,” Moody said, “He is wrong." His wife continued, “I think you will agree with him when you hear him, because he backs up everything he says with the Word of God. You think if a man doesn't preach as you do, he is wrong."
Moody went and noticed people brought their Bibles. He turned to John 3:16 and preached an extraordinary sermon and turned from Genesis to Revelation to prove that in all ages God loved the world that He sent prophets and patriarchs and holy men to warn them, and last of all sent His Son. After they murdered Him, He sent the Holy Spirit to live within mankind, to all who believe in Christ.
Moody, wrote, "I never knew up to that time that God loved us so much. This heart of mine began to thaw out, and I could not keep back the tears. It was like news from a far country. I just drank it in."
The next night Moorhouse turned again to John 3 16. Moody saw how he used the Bible to explain the Bible and God’s great love. Moody wrote, "I used to preach that God was behind the sinner with a double-edged sword, ready to hew him down. I preach now that God is behind the sinner with love, and he is running away from the God of love. "
On the 7th night Moorehouse exclaimed. "My friend, for a whole week I have been trying to tell you how much God loves you, but I cannot do it with this poor stammering tongue. If I could borrow Jacobs ladder and climb up into Heaven, and ask Gabriel who stands in the presence of the Almighty, if he could tell me how much love the Father has for the world, all he could say would be God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.”
In the face of blasphemy hatred, revenge, slander and abuse, Jesus stood at the crucifixion and said, "Father forgive them for they know not what they are doing." He prayed for them.
It is one thing to take it. It is a greater love to return good for evil. True love is not sentimental, it is service, and it is sacrifice. There is no reason in the world for God to have His only begotten Son suffer abuse and heartache, to take on the form of mankind and walk around like one of us, but He did. That is the greatest love. It is God's love. It was the love demonstrated to each of us while we were still sinners.
Prayer: Thank you, LORD.
