Tuesday's Blog - Love your enemy!

Tuesday’s Blog – Love your enemy!

Proverbs 25:21-23 – If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink; for so you will reap coals of fire on his head and the LORD will reward you.

Bible Challenges and Comments

Most of the book of Proverbs is foreign to our thinking today, so much so that if we are not careful we find ourselves cursing our friends and running from our enemies. Our understanding of living life is crushed by the human reasoning by relaxing the proven standards or statutes found in the Living Word of God. We see this in churches across this land and I suppose this is where it all begins. Churches teach love without discipline and they teach work without faith.

For my thinking in this we have enemies because they are hungry, they are hungry for the food that produces relationships (physical and spiritual). Our churches have lost the focus of preparing a table of showbread. That word is interesting and can mean various things related to food (bread) but the thought that I picked out of it this morning from Strong’s Concordance is the following. Shew = bread; and Bread = that endures.

Solomon then in Proverbs feeds his readers with the challenges in the skill of living with thoughts that fill our hearts and minds with knowledge that endures. This same principle should be directed at our enemies too in that we who are fed should feed our enemies. The question then pops up. “Who then is the enemy of the saint?” Could it be the one who is not a saint?”

Then we have the thought of placing coals of fire on his or her head to reap a reward from the LORD for this action. If you have never used wood to heat your home you could miss Solomon’s intended challenge and the LORD’s reward. A person in need of food and water is no doubt in need of comfort in his or her home. They suffer the comforts of even the most trivial kind. Yet trivial is what trivial is and comfort is what comfort is. If you are cold and cannot warm up it is a serious misery.

In the day when Solomon reigned King over Jerusalem and in the day when Jesus walked the streets of Jerusalem there were only wood stoves to keep the family warm. If a family is destitute of food and drink, they would also be cold in the fall, winter and spring months. So again the enemy, when in need may come and ask for a little fire to take home as his or her fire has gone out.

If you have ever carried the ashes to your dumping spot, you know you must wait several hours before you do this as the ambers will ignite and a fire will start if you dump the ash too soon. The KING is coming, did you read and hear? The KING is coming and He knows those who are HIS and HE rewards those who are obedient to HIS WORD.

Matthew 25:35-40 – for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.' Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?' And the King will answer and say to them, 'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.'

Our churches today are in Spiritual decay, we are works minded instead of faith minded and the works we do are within the church rather than outside where the enemy today says. “Leave me alone now, I have learned to live without God, so don’t bother me with words of good news since I do not see this in your daily actions with me. You are much like I am, backbiting and judgmental so please leave me alone and I when I need something; I will just take it from you!”

Have yourself a day with God in it… if He is not in your day you will be lacking the joy of living!