Agree

The Lord desires to transform our hearts through the truths of His Word and the inward work of the Spirit.  He has made us, and created us for a relationship with Him through Jesus.  We can see these verses in Isaiah 29:
14 Therefore, behold, I will again do a marvelous work Among this people, A marvelous work and a wonder; For the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, And the understanding of their prudent men shall be hidden."
15 Woe to those who seek deep to hide their counsel far from the Lord, And their works are in the dark; They say, "Who sees us?" and, "Who knows us?"
16 Surely you have things turned around! Shall the potter be esteemed as the clay; For shall the thing made say of him who made it, "He did not make me"? Or shall the thing formed say of him who formed it, "He has no understanding"?

Even though we may not speak those words, per se, by the attitudes of our hearts and the actions in which we engage, we can show a level of commitment and desire for obedience that God does not intend.  We read the Scriptures, but we have to make sure we make them part of us, allowing God to change us, to remake us internally, so that we can walk in His love and obey His truth.  Without Him, we cannot comply with His teachings.

+++++

As Jesus walked on earth with His disciples, He taught them some revolutionary things.  Take, for
instance, what He said in Matthew 19:
24 And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."
25 When His disciples heard it, they were greatly astonished, saying, "Who then can be saved?"
26 But Jesus looked at them and said to them, "With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."

Peter was especially impulsive, as we know: in Matthew 16, we read this account:
21 From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day.
22 Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, "Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!"
23 But He turned and said to Peter, "Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men."

This is the same man, who was a pillar of the early Church, by the way, who argued with Jesus when the Lord told him that he would deny Him three times.

Now consider an earthly encounter that reminded me of some of the encounters that the disciples had with Jesus as they wrestled with certain aspects of His teaching.  At last week's National Prayer Breakfast, Arthur Brooks, a Harvard professor and self-described conservative and Christian, spoke.  The Christian Post related:

The author of 11 books turned to the words of Jesus, society’s “greatest entrepreneur” and thinker, from Matthew 5: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

Such words are as “subversive and counterintuitive” today as they were 2,000 years ago, Brooks said.

But to apply these words to today’s polarized society, “we need to make the problem personal..."

Brooks, author of a book called, Love Your Enemies, said:

“Let me ask you this: How many of you love somebody with whom you disagree politically? Are you comfortable hearing someone insult that person that you love? Make it personal, my friends.”

Moral courage, he said, isn’t standing up to those with whom you disagree. Rather, it’s “standing up to those with whom you agree on behalf of those with whom you disagree.”

Brooks gave three pieces of "homework," according to the article:

• "...ask God to give you the strength to do this hard thing, to go against your human nature, to follow Jesus’ teaching.”
• “make a commitment to somebody else to reject contempt.”
• “go out looking for contempt..."

In other words, look for opportunities to overcome hate with love.

President Trump then got up and opened this way; this is taken from the White House transcript:

I’m working very hard for you, I will tell you. (Laughter.) And sometimes you don’t make it easy, and I certainly don’t make it easy on you. (Laughter.) And I will continue that tradition, if I might, this morning. And, Arthur, I don’t know if I agree with you. (Laughter.) But I don’t know if Arthur is going to like what I’m going to say. (Laughter.) But I love listening to you. It’s really great. Thank you very much.

That response was certainly off-the-cuff, and the President has even been chided for disagreeing with the teachings of Jesus.  But, since there was laughter, you could surmise that it was intended as an attempt at humor.  Let's look at little closer at the words that followed.

Tony Perkins of Family Research Council discussed his speech recently online.  Here he quotes the President in two excerpts from his prayer breakfast speech:

"As everybody knows, my family, our great country, and your president have been put through a terrible ordeal..." he said when he took to the podium. "They have done everything possible to destroy us and by so doing, very badly hurt our nation. They know what they are doing is wrong, but they put themselves far ahead of our great country. So many people have been hurt," he admitted, "and we can't let that go on."

Looking at Brooks, he acknowledged how hard the message of forgiveness can be. "I'm sorry," the president said with humility. "I apologize. I am trying to learn... It's not easy. When they impeach you for nothing, and you're supposed to like them, it's not easy, folks. I do my best," he said. "I'm working very hard for you, I will tell you," he had started. Then, to laughter, "And sometimes you don't make it easy, and I certainly don't make it easy on you."

As CBN.com reported: "That 'I'm sorry' came after the normally politics-free morning of prayer had already taken a partisan turn with the president still reeling from years of impeachment attacks and threats by his political opponents."

The article goes on to say:

"I don't like people who use their faith as justification for doing what they know is wrong," Trump said in a possible reference to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). "I don't like when people say, 'I pray for you' when that's not so…"

Elsewhere in his speech, Trump connected faith to God's freedom for everyone. "All of us here today reaffirm these timeless truths: Faith keeps us free. Prayer makes us strong. And God alone is the author of life and the giver of grace."

In looking over the White House transcript, I discovered a story that the President shared that has received very little coverage.  It seems that the section about using faith as justification for wrongdoing and saying "I pray for you" get the lion's share of attention.  But, did you know that the President introduced the pastor of an African-American church in Louisiana whose church was burned to the ground last year - just before Easter?   The church and two others which were burned have raised $2 million for rebuilding.  And, listen to the President's words:

You know, the Reverend says that we’re rebuilding because that’s what Jesus does. He rebuilds, he lives, and he breathes. It’s what he does. He wants it to be rebuilt. It was torn apart, but it’s being rebuilt again, and I’ll bet you it will indeed be bigger, better, and nicer than before. What do you think, Reverend?

If you Google the pastor's last name "Touissant," and "National Prayer Breakfast," you get only a handful of entries.  Isn't it sad?  And, I have to admit, I think that story did not receive the attention it deserved partly because it didn't fit the mainstream media narrative, but because there was other material grabbing headlines, thanks to the President.

And, that's my first takeaway: we can speak kindly words and do good works, but sometimes ill-chosen words and harmful actions can overshadow all the good we've done.   One wrong choice may even cancel out a lifetime of right service.  We have to be careful to avoid those "unforced errors" that can harm our testimony.

As I mentioned, I've seen where Trump has been taking to task for questioning Jesus' command to love our enemies.  Well, you could say he's in good company - sometimes the disciples wrestled with what Jesus was teaching them. And, we may even, in studying the Word, find some of his hard teachings hard to swallow.  Sometimes we may really have to pray about receiving them.

And other times, we flat out shirk His truth and disobey His commands, demonstrating we don't really believe His words.  Trump is not the only one who has trouble loving his enemies - at least he admitted it.  And, I would hope that God deals with his heart.  For each of us, we have to be careful that we don't disregard Christ's teachings by doing what we want and harboring anger and bitterness in our hearts.  We recognize that we need the power of God to enable us to follow that command.