Originally Posted by moral necessity

The goal is not to get even with them at all! The emphasis is on us acting genuine according to the fountain, or the spring, that is within us as believers! And, the result is naturally described.

The heart of Chirst is to love those who are sick with the disease of sin. It is to pity and to pray for those who have been so distraught with the corruption of sin and it's influences. This is the genuine desire of Christ for his enemies, as it ought to be that of ours for others! How else do we explain the greatness of the love of Christ unto ourselves? Yet, by truly communicating this desire to the unregenerate, and by truly exhibiting such love to them in their need, we do truly minister the love of God to them; in that we truly represent the love of Christ to them towards their situation and towards their repentance. For, we give them what they would grant to their own; and yet we grant unto them what they would not venture to grant unto their very own enemies. We love them in a way that they would not be loved by anyone, nor in a way that they would love anyone else! And so, it displays the freedom that we have in Christ...for we are free to love others with as much love as with which we have been loved by Christ! And so, inevitibly, we display that Christ causes us to love others more than that which they are worthy of. And, if they refuse even such love as this, then they are only heaping, upon their own selves and upon their own beings, more condemnation; for they refuse to love the God who has loved them in this very way from the very beginning! So, we are to love them in such a way now, as it is God's way that he loves both the just and the unjust; and this has been his way towards all for all eternity!

Blessings!