It is interesting to see David's psalms cry out for vengeance against those who persecute him, his friends at that. Then I saw David's reaction when Saul and Jonathan were killed. He was miserable. I know David and Jonathan were close, like brothers. So I understood the emotions there. Yet, David wrote psalm after psalm crying out for vengeance against his oppressor Saul. The day the vengeance came, David wept. It seems like David is modeling a love for your enemies that Jesus spoke about in the Sermon on the Mount. He doesn't delight in anyone's undoing, but wishes all would repent and believe the Lord.
Watching politics lately, I've noticed that each party wishes and strives for the other's undoing. In our culture where alienation reigns, people seek to isolate their opposition. They want them cut off from society, feeling hate and not love, until their opposition is ground to dust and comes around to their point of view. Basically, they use love and unity as a condition that exists only when you see things their way...it is very conditional. David modeled a different way, the way Jesus spoke of. We are to love those who oppose us and pray for them. We are to genuinely desire that they return to the Lord. Billy Graham once said that it is God's job to judge, the Spirit's job to convict, and our job to love. Let us know our role and live it out as Christ commissioned us to.
Lord, help me to love
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