Father, Forgive Them

Loved While We Were Enemies

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Jesus told us to love our enemies. Before He asked us to do it, God did it for us.

God’s enemies. The Bible says that, because of sin, we were once against God. “For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son” (Romans 5:10). Reconciled means made friends again.

Love came first. “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). God did not wait for us to become good.

Real love. “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son” (1 John 4:10). Love starts with God.

For the whole world. “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).

Children of God. “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!” (1 John 3:1). God did not only forgive His enemies. He brought them into His family.

Jesus came close. The Pharisees and scribes complained that Jesus ate with tax collectors and sinners. Jesus did not wait for them to clean up first. He came close, and His love changed them.

Without strength. “For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6). Without strength means we could not save ourselves or climb up to God. Ungodly means living as if God did not matter.

Hardly for a good man. “For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die” (Romans 5:7). Scarcely means hardly ever. A person might give his life for a very good friend. Jesus gave His life for people who were against Him.

Four words about us. Romans 5 calls us without strength, ungodly, sinners and enemies (Romans 5:6, 8, 10). Not one of those words gives God a reason to love us. He loved us anyway.

Saved by His life. Jesus did not stay in the grave. He rose again on the third day, and “much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life” (Romans 5:10). The living Jesus keeps everyone who trusts Him.

Glad to be friends. “We also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation” (Romans 5:11). Received means it comes as a gift. Nobody earns friendship with God. Jesus gives it, and that makes us glad.

God is kind to all. “The Lord is merciful and gracious, Slow to anger, and abounding in mercy” (Psalm 103:8). “He has not dealt with us according to our sins” (Psalm 103:10).

Like our Father. When we love an enemy, we show the same love God showed us. That is what Jesus meant by being “sons of your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:45).

What to do. Thank God today that He loved you first. Then think of someone who is hard to love, and ask God to help you see them the way He does.

Matthew 5:44 and Romans 5:10 use the same Greek word for enemy, echthros (say: ekh-THROSS), a person who is hostile. Jesus commands us to love hostile people because God first loved us when we were hostile to Him.

Hostile hearts. Sin is more than a list of wrong acts. It is a heart turned against God. Paul describes us as sinners and as enemies before Christ came for us (Romans 5:8, 10).

Reconciled. To be reconciled is to have a broken relationship made whole. In Romans 5:10 God is the One who acts. He removed the barrier through the death of His Son.

Much more. Paul reasons from the harder thing to the easier one: if God loved us as enemies, “much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life” (Romans 5:10). A believer can know that they belong to God.

Love defined (1 John 4:10). Love is defined by God’s action, not ours: “not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son.”

Adopted. “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!” (1 John 3:1). God did more than end the hostility. He brought former enemies into His family as sons and daughters.

Without strength (5:6). Before Paul calls us sinners and enemies, he calls us powerless: “For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.” We could not rescue ourselves, and God did not wait for us to try.

Hardly for a good man (5:7-8). “For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die.” Human love may give itself for someone worthy. Verse 8 turns on the words “But God”: His love is shown in dying for the unworthy.

Received, not achieved (5:10-11). The life in verse 10 is the life of the risen Jesus, who lives to keep His people. Verse 11 adds that we “have now received the reconciliation.” It comes as a gift, never as a wage, and the response is joy: “we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Kindness to the unthankful. Luke records Jesus saying of God, “For He is kind to the unthankful and evil” (Luke 6:35). Psalm 103:8-10 shows the same patient God. Every sunrise is a mercy.

Family resemblance. Loving enemies is not how we join God’s family. It is how His children begin to look like Him. Paul says to “walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us” (Ephesians 5:2).

Application. Write down one way God has been patient with you. Let that memory shape how you treat someone who has been hard on you.

Father, Forgive Them

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Jesus did not only teach about loving enemies. He did it on the hardest day of His life.

A quiet Lamb. Isaiah wrote that the Savior would be “led as a lamb to the slaughter” (Isaiah 53:7). Jesus did not fight back when He was arrested.

Put away the sword. When Peter used a sword to defend Him, Jesus said, “Put your sword in its place” (Matthew 26:52). Then He healed the ear of a servant who had come to arrest Him (Luke 22:51).

Insulted, but not insulting. “Who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten” (1 Peter 2:23).

The prayer from the cross. “Then Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do’” (Luke 23:34). He prayed for the very people who were hurting Him.

He carried our sins. Jesus is the One “who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24). Everyone who trusts Him is forgiven.

No one too far. The people Jesus prayed for were doing the worst thing anyone has ever done. If He could forgive them, He can forgive anyone who comes to Him.

Fifty days later. At Pentecost, Peter preached in Jerusalem about Jesus, who had been crucified and had risen. The people “were cut to the heart” and asked, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” (Acts 2:37).

Forgiveness offered. Peter said, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins” (Acts 2:38). Remission means forgiveness. About three thousand people believed that day (Acts 2:41).

Stephen prayed too. Stephen was one of the first Christians. Angry men killed him because he told them about Jesus. As he died, Stephen asked the Lord not to hold their sin against them (Acts 7:60). He prayed the way Jesus had prayed.

An enemy became a brother. A young man named Saul watched Stephen die. Afterward Saul hurt Christians and put them in prison. Then Jesus met him, forgave him and made him Paul, a great missionary. The believers he once hurt became his family.

Forgiven people forgive. “And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32).

Pray like Jesus. Jesus said to “pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). Praying for someone is one of the kindest things you can do for them.

What to do. Think of someone who has hurt you. Tell God how you feel. Then ask Him to bless that person and to help you forgive.

Luke 23:34 records Jesus praying from the cross for the people who were crucifying Him. What He taught on the mountain in Matthew 5, He lived out at Golgotha, and His followers learned to pray the same way.

The Suffering Servant. Isaiah 53:7 describes a Servant who “opened not His mouth.” Jesus stayed silent before His accusers (Matthew 26:63) and never called for revenge.

The sword in the garden. Jesus stopped Peter: “Put your sword in its place” (Matthew 26:52). He then healed the ear of the high priest’s servant (Luke 22:51), doing good to a man who came to arrest Him.

Father, forgive them. Jesus adds, “for they do not know what they do.” They knew they were putting a man to death. They did not understand they were crucifying the Lord of glory (1 Corinthians 2:8).

The answer to the prayer. At Pentecost, Peter told the crowd in Jerusalem that God had made “this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36). That day “about three thousand souls” believed and were baptized (Acts 2:41). Many Christians see this as the Father answering Jesus’ prayer from the cross.

Cut to the heart (Acts 2:37-38). The listeners asked, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” Peter did not answer with judgment but with an offer: “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins.” The same people who had shouted for the cross were invited to receive its forgiveness.

Stephen (Acts 7:54-60). Stephen, the first Christian to die for his faith, saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God. As he was being stoned, he prayed for the Lord Jesus to receive his spirit, and then asked Him not to charge his killers with this sin. Both prayers echo what Jesus prayed on the cross (Luke 23:34, 46).

A witness in the crowd. The men who stoned Stephen laid their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul (Acts 7:58). Saul approved of Stephen’s death and went on to drag believers off to prison (Acts 8:1-3).

Saul to Paul (Acts 9). On the road to Damascus the risen Jesus asked Saul why he was persecuting Him. Jesus counted the harm done to His people as harm done to Himself, and still He saved the man doing it. A disciple named Ananias greeted him as Brother Saul (Acts 9:17).

Chief of sinners. Paul later called himself the chief of sinners who received mercy (1 Timothy 1:15). Stephen’s prayer for his killers was answered in at least one of the men who stood there.

Forgiven people forgive. Ephesians 4:32 bases forgiveness on what God did: “even as God in Christ forgave you.” The cross is the measure and the power.

Application. Pray Jesus’ words for someone who has wronged you: Father, forgive them. Then ask God to bless them, and keep praying until your heart begins to change.

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Read each section and answer the questions correctly.