How is it that I love those that consider themselves to be my enemy? How can I love those that have aligned themselves against the Word of God, by the perversion of the fruit of their lips? It is not by any act of my own but by love of God, because God has loved us first. The Word of God creates with the spoken word. Jesus, the Word of God, said, “Love your enemy” (see Matthew 5:44). With that statement He placed the love within me to do so. It is His – to do His will – to serve Him. “For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s” (1 Corinthians 6:20).

The enemy cannot create, so he perverts what God has created. Hate and lust is perverted love. Lust for power or position are works of the flesh. God said, “But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant” (Matthew 23:11). The lie that perverts claims, “He who is greatest among you shall be served,” the survival of the fittest. In man’s world the armor bearer severs the warrior, but in God’s world the warrior serves the armor bearer. In man’s world the weak serve the strong, but in God’s world the strong serve the weak. In the battle who stays off the enemy, the armor bearer or the warrior – the weak or the strong? Who is the true greatest servant, the teacher or the student? Who is giving and who is receiving? Who is the teacher, the armor bearer or the warrior? Doesn’t the warrior protect the armor bearer and the armor bearer allowed to grow strong in the warrior’s shadow?

God gives us love for our enemy. God gives us love for everyone. The Word of God creates with the spoken word. “This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12). A commandment is an authoritative prescription. The prescription to love does not have to be filled by a pharmacists. The same Lord that gave us the prescription also fulfilled it, “as I have loved you.”

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). “The righteous perishes, and no man takes it to heart; merciful men are taken away, while no one considers that the righteous is taken away from evil” (Isaiah 57:1). “Peace, peace to him who is far off and to him who is near,” says the Lord, “and I will heal him” (Isaiah 57:19). God so loves and “whoever believes in Him shall not perish.”

“And this is His commandment: that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as He gave us commandment” (1 John 3:23). The “His” in that statement is God the Father, the One that sent Jesus Christ. It is the authoritative prescription from the Father that we believe in His Son and love one another. The Father and the Son are in agreement that we should love one another. By the witness of two a man is convicted. The Holy Spirit produces love – love is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. The same Holy Spirit that put Jesus into Mary’s body to be birthed into this world, produces love in the heart that believes in the Son of God.

Jesus said, “If you love Me, keep My commandments” (John 14:21). The commandment, love one another. “Not as though I wrote a new commandment to you, but that which we have had from the beginning: that we love one another. This is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, that as you have heard from the beginning, you should walk in it” (2 John 1:5-6). John was writing of no other authoritative prescription than that which he stated, “that we love one another.”

“He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him” (John 14:21). If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? (1 John 4:20). If we do not love one another, we cannot love God. Taking the prescription Jesus gave to us to “love one another” is how we can be “he who has My commandments” and ” he who loves Me” as spoken by Jesus Christ.

© 2006, 2017 Tim D. Coulter Sr.