<\/p>\n
\u201cLove your enemies and pray for those who persecute you\u201d<\/em> (Matt. 5:44).<\/p>\n There was a man who had become a friend and mentor to me, but a conflict arose between us that we were unable to resolve. I never imagined that this man would go from being one of my best friends to an enemy. I asked God to show me how I should treat this man, and the words of Jesus came to mind, \u201cLove your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLord,\u201d I said, \u201csurely you don\u2019t mean I\u2019m to love this man! Not after the way he\u2019s hurt me and refused to reconcile!\u201d<\/p>\n As I argued with God, I remembered that Jesus, before He was betrayed, got down on his knees and washed the feet of Judas Iscariot, His enemy. The moment that scene came to my mind, I knew what God was calling me to do. I had to wash the feet of my Judas.<\/p>\n This man who had been my friend and mentor had also been a client of my advertising agency. He was a Christian author and speaker, and I decided to bless this man by continuing to promote his ministry and his books.<\/p>\n Did he ever come back to me and reconcile? Yes, seven years later. But even if he had never reconciled with me, I knew that I did what God called me to do. I washed the feet of my Judas. I passed the test.<\/p>\n God doesn\u2019t promise that if we forgive there will be a happy ending. He doesn\u2019t promise that the man who refuses to pay a bill will suddenly write a check. He doesn\u2019t promise that the one who rejects reconciliation will instantly soften his heart. Jesus forgave his executioners, but that didn\u2019t keep them from nailing Him to the cross.<\/p>\n The Graduate Level Test is not about getting the results we want. It\u2019s about proving that we trust God enough to forgive our Judases. It\u2019s a graduate-level course in Christian obedience. But I believe that every leader whom God uses in a significant way must pass the Judas Test.<\/p>\n God wants to know if we are willing to be imitators of Jesus. How can we say we are followers of Christ if we won\u2019t wash the feet of our Judases?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Graduate Level Christianity \u201cLove your enemies and pray for those who persecute you\u201d (Matt. 5:44). There was a man who had become a friend and mentor to me, but a conflict arose between us that we were unable to resolve. I never imagined that this man would go from being one of my best friends<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9770,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[313,182,9304,1398,181],"class_list":{"0":"post-28151","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-devotionals","8":"tag-christianity","9":"tag-god","10":"tag-graduate","11":"tag-level","12":"tag-today"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}