Morning Devotional 032126 Love as Christ Loves

Liz’s Morning Devotional: Scripture selected from Upper Room

March 21, 2026

Luke 6:27-36

27 “But I say to you who are willing to hear: Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. 28 Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If someone slaps you on the cheek, offer the other one as well. If someone takes your coat, don’t withhold your shirt either. 30 Give to everyone who asks and don’t demand your things back from those who take them. 31 Treat people in the same way that you want them to treat you. 32 “If you love those who love you, why should you be commended? Even sinners love those who love them. 33 If you do good to those who do good to you, why should you be commended? Even sinners do that. 34 If you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, why should you be commended? Even sinners lend to sinners expecting to be paid back in full. 35 Instead, love your enemies, do good, and lend expecting nothing in return. If you do, you will have a great reward. You will be acting the way children of the Most High act, for he is kind to ungrateful and wicked people. 36 Be compassionate just as your Father is compassionate.

Good Morning, Love your enemies, do good, and lend expecting nothing in return.

This is a challenging teaching for us to understand. As humans, we learn from a young age that things ought to be fair. How many times did you say or think, especially in your younger years, “that’s not fair!” 

As we age, we continue to see discrepancies to our paradigm of fairness. Some seem to get everything they want with little or no effort, while others work hard and never achieve the reward equivalent to their effort. Of course, when we are assigning fairness, we are also pronouncing judgment which we are not supposed to do. 

Imagine being pulled over for speeding and watching the other cars go speeding by. You don’t question that you were indeed speeding, but why are you the one who receives the punishment and the others do not. Are those not being stopped, your enemies? Are they wicked? 

Along our faith journey, we will see those who seem overly blessed, but God blesses and gives to those as is needed. There is no tally system to ensure the giving is equally distributed among all. God sees our needs and responds, and asks us to do likewise. By God’s grace, we receive the portion that we need. 

We may have times of much need and other times when little is needed. God will respond compassionately to us and continue to love us forever.

God of Wisdom, you bless us abundantly! We can be petty when we see those who seem to have more than we do. Thank you for loving us anyway. We love you. In Christ’s name we pray, Amen.

Thought for the day: We can show Christ’s love to the world by treating everyone with respect. 

God cares for and blesses each of us! Pastor Liz