Welcome to Sunday Fuel! This series of questions is designed to assist your personal reflection and fellowship with others about the sermon from this past Sunday.

Go to This Sunday’s Sermon (start at 17:46)

1. Our enemies are not just those who are actively wish you harm but anyone you struggle to love or people who get in the way of what we want. With that definition in mind, who are your enemies—someone you struggle to love or the type of person you struggle to love? Keep them in mind as you consider the following questions. Instead of moving quickly to justifying your lack of love, will you come humbly before the Word to move towards Christ, love, and His joy? 

2. We often find it challenging to love because our “enemies” are getting in the way of what we want or aren’t worshiping the same idols our selfish hearts have set up. How do the people in question 1 reveal this in your life? What kinds of “relational math” are you doing and how do they fall short? How might these be ways you are justifying your lack of love?

3. Pastor Kim points out that when we lack love for someone or simply settle for indifference, we are, in effect, hating them. If we refuse to love them, how can you justify that choice, given Jesus’s words in this passage? Take time to confess your attitude to the Lord as falling short of His calling for kingdom citizens.

4. Instead of meditating on all the ways others have fallen short of your standards, think on God’s patient, forbearing love that unjustly bore treatment like an enemy and suffered hell so we could be treated like sons. Remind yourself that if God so loves you, we don’t need to fight so hard for fairness because He already loves us so thoroughly. 

5. If God so loves us, we cannot in good conscience withhold love from others. What small acts of love might you take to display the spiritual DNA of your Father, trusting that He will one day reward your efforts? What can you pray for them? How might you greet them? How might you pursue their well being and peace?