Jesus is placing before us high expectations for his followers. He wants us to live out our new life, the kingdom life, and grow in maturity. Jesus practiced that. He loved his enemies. He came into this world, a world full of enemies of God and walked in love, and He gave his life for me, an enemy of God and he turned an enemy into a friend. As Jesus was on the cross, He prayed, “Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.” The same pattern is shown in Stephen’s martyrdom in Acts 7. We recognize that Jesus has already set the model for us and we trust Jesus and walk that way in our day-to-day life, have the agape love of attitude and action to our neighbors and our enemy. When we live this way, we enter into the very heartbeat of God.