Commands don’t always come with explanations.

We’re not always told why we’re commanded to do something. But in Matthew 5:45, Jesus tells us why we are commanded to love our enemies and pray for our persecutors, and the reason points us to a glorious, climactic reality. He says, “So that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.” This is an incredible statement. We demonstrate that we are children of God when we manifest His characteristics. How will the world know we truly belong to Him unless we love as He loves? And the more we behave in a godly manner, the more readily apparent it becomes that we are His children and possess His character.

Scripture is clear that our love is a powerful testimony to our sonship. The Lord told His disciples, “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). In his first epistle, the Apostle John wrote, “God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 John 4:16). Moreover, he wrote, “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen” (v. 20). Our love for others speaks volumes—particularly our love for the unlovable and for those who are unloving toward us.

In situations where we are confronted with the call to love our enemies, we need to remember that God loves His enemies too. While it’s true the Lord’s anger burns against the wicked and that He will one day pour out His wrath on the rebellious, at the same time, there is also a sense in which He shows His love to all mankind impartially. Theologians call this the doctrine of common grace, and we see examples of it in Scripture and throughout our daily lives. Psalm 145:15–16 highlights one example: “The eyes of all look to You, and You give them their food in due time. You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.” Put simply, God feeds everyone.

Christ gives us another illustration of God’s common grace in the Sermon on the Mount. How do we know God loves everybody? Jesus says, “He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and send rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45). God’s common grace to all men is on display every day in His creation. To both the saved and the unsaved, He gives sunlight and rain to sustain life and grow food. He makes our lives possible. As Paul said in his sermon on Mars Hill, “In Him we live and move and exist” (Acts 17:28).

We can quickly touch on some other aspects of God’s love that extend even to His enemies. God loves the lost in that He holds back His wrath. In 1 Timothy 4:10, Paul refers to the Lord as “the Savior of all men, especially of believers.” This isn’t saying that all men will be spiritually and eternally saved; rather, Paul has in mind the Lord’s temporal protection of the lost against His immediate righteous judgment. Every breath an unregenerate person takes is another act of grace from a merciful, saving God. Not only that, but God also loves the lost in that He warns them of the judgment that they will face unless they repent. In His Word and through His people, God is constantly calling sinners to turn from their ways and submit to Him in faith. Jesus put it this way: “The one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out” (6:37). We have the privilege of extending God’s love to the lost by calling them to repentance and faith.

We also see God’s love for the lost in His compassion. Scripture is clear that God is grieved by the perversion of His image in man’s rebellion and by the eternal consequences of unrepentant sin. Luke 19:41 tells us Christ wept for Jerusalem. Matthew recorded the Lord’s lament over the city: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. Behold, your house is being left to you desolate! For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’” (23:37–39). Our God has great compassion for the lost. We must cultivate the same kind of compassion for the sinners in our midst, spurring us on to proclaim His truth.

That’s the love of God that extends to everyone, and the kind of love we must show to others if we’re going to be identified as His children. This love is not limited to some narrow definition of who qualifies as your neighbor, as the Jews had done. It’s not limited to only the people you happen to like or the people who naturally attract your affection. It extends even to people who hate you and those who would wound, defraud, and persecute you. It extends to people who are outside your social circles—even to those on the fringes of society. And it’s not just for your family and friends. Christ points out that even rank sinners and pagans can show affection for loves ones (Matthew 5:46–47).

Jesus is saying that there is a love of God that extends beyond His love for His own. God loves even His enemies—those who hate Him, those who hated His Son, and those who persecute His people to this day.

And if we are going to be known as our Father’s children, we need to manifest that same kind of love for the lost. He demonstrates His love to sinners through general goodness, pity, warning, admonition, real grief over their plight, and a pleading offer of the saving gospel. We must love our neighbors—including our enemies—in the same way. We need to prioritize their general welfare. If that means a meal, clothing, money, or some other kind of assistance, we give it freely, out of a sincere desire for their good. More than that, we show them pity, compassion, and grief over their slavery of sin and the consequences that await if they do not repent. Loving our enemies also means warning them of God’s judgment and faithfully, lovingly admonishing them to repent and believe while there is still time. That is loving our neighbors the way God loves.

Christ’s words in Matthew 5:48 tell us what we likely already know: that such perfect love is impossible on our own. He says, “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” The point of the Sermon on the Mount was to expose the futility of the Jews’ self-righteous religion. Over and over, sinful man is confronted with his inability to meet God’s standard on his own terms. Holiness and righteousness are beyond our reach.

But the point is not to send us into despair. Rather, it’s to drive us into the arms of our Savior. It’s to burn the truth of Matthew 19:26 into our minds—that “with people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Even as new creations in Christ, we constantly need to be reminded not to rely on ourselves—to push aside the pride and self-righteousness that come so easy to us all. We need to recognize the weakness of our flesh and cast ourselves onto the mercy and strength of our Lord.

And as He sheds His love abroad in our hearts, may we learn to share it faithfully—not only with our fellow believers and others who are easy to love, but with all our neighbors, and particularly those who are difficult to love, and even those who qualify as our enemies. May the Lord soften our hearts for the people He’s placed in our midst, and may we be mindful that we were once His enemies and would still be if it weren’t for His great love.

(Adapted from Stand Firm)