For if you love those who love you, what reward will you have? Don’t even the tax collectors do the same?
Matthew 5:46 (CSB)
Right after telling us to love our enemies, Jesus tests the easy kind of love. The kind where you love people who already love you.
He asks a sharp question. What reward’s in that? Then He answers it. None. Because that’s not really love that costs you anything. It’s a trade. You give a little, you get a little back. Nobody had to risk a thing.
Then He names a group everyone looked down on. Tax collectors. A tax collector was a Jew who collected money for Rome. He squeezed his own people and kept some for himself. People saw him as a traitor. And Jesus says even he loves the people who love him back. Even a crook has friends.
So what does this look like for us? The test isn’t “do I love someone.” Everyone loves someone. It’s whether our love ever goes where nothing comes back. The relative who only takes. The neighbor who’ll never repay us. The person who can do nothing for us. So we go there on purpose. We do the kind thing that won’t be paid back. Loving where it pays is easy. Anyone can do that.
Jesus didn’t love the easy way. He loved people who’d never pay Him back. People who’d turn on Him. While we were still His enemies, He died for us (Rom 5:8). And the reward He said a trade can never earn, He gives us for free. He gives us God Himself.