I can and do believe that becoming willing to love our nemesis is God's personal plan and gift for us, but until we actually DO "loving your enemy," i.e., the Sermon, not write about, talk about, but DO, we will not have peace...and that is the kingdom of Heaven.
Comes now another blinding flash of the obvious: Not by will, but by grace, be it done unto me.
What that says to me is actually doing the Sermon with gritted teeth and certitude in my rightness is just another self-determined objective...just another item on my 2-Do checklist. And, as a matter of fact, it can be done...but there is no spiritual growth there, no God or lasting good for that matter.
According to me, God's personal plan and gift for us is to turn daily to his love so It may walk us through the Sermon with no other objective but to show forth the impersonal love of acceptance. All of which is harder for this natural person than actually doing the Sermon with gritted teeth and certitude in my rightness. The fact that it is doable and on my timetable does not make it right, it makes it the double-edged checklist...looking good, doing not so much.
To my ego-victory thinking, saying, "Yea, Yea," to an adversary with whom I am in mental disagreement is close enough to perfect. No. It is the mental disagreement that we must take to God to be resolved within us. Until it is "peaced," it is growing a resentment, and that resentment will haunt us, do our thinking for us, and cause us to doubt the power of spiritual growth...or, who's kidding whom, the existence of God.
Really, this just boils down to the same-old-same-old: Seek ye first the kingdom of Heaven and all these things will be added unto you. There's my cheap shot of gratitude...my best thinking is speaking Biblically approved jargon. (Now, do it.)
Thank you.
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