Jesus said,
“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,” ~Matthew 5:43-44
Most of us don’t necessarily have “enemies”, but i’m sure that everyone has those people in their lives who they don’t necessarily like or those people who are just not very nice. When you think about those people in your life i’m sure most of you are probably thinking “How in the world can we love our enemies?!“ and “Why should we love our enemies if they have deliberately be unloving and unkind to us in return?! “
Well today I want to touch on that a little bit, and to start off i’m going to talk about why we should love our enemies.
1.It’s the 2nd Greatest commandment
“The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.” ~ Matthew 22:39
When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was His response was
1. “To Love Your God with all your heart.” And
2. “To Love your neighbor as yourself.”
When Jesus says “neighbor” He is referring to everyone around us, and that includes even the ones we don’t necessarily like.
2. It teaches us to love meaningfully.
“If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them.” ~ Luke 6:32
As followers of Christ we are called to be different, set apart, to be a light in this world. So, how would we be any different if we only loved the ones who loved us in return?
So how do we do this? How do you love our enemies? I think this question is answered perfectly in this verse.
“But I say to you who listen: Love your enemies, do what is good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” ~Luke 6:27-28
To bless and pray for those who curse you is not to just do them good, but to ask God for their well-being. Jesus emphasizes this again in other verses such as Luke 6:29 and Luke 6:30.
It’s one thing to bless someone or pray for someone who is doing good to you, but to bless and pray for those who curse you is entirely different. As followers of Jesus we are being challenged to work from selfless love and concern for someone else even if they don’t really deserve it, and from this selfless love we will be blessed as well.