Love Your Enemies

“Do to others as you would have them do to you” –Luke 6:31

In the gospel of Luke Chapter 6, Jesus taught us to “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who ill-treat you”, something which we would find difficult to do in the natural. It hurts when a person ill-treats you, when a friend betrays your trust, or when you are insulted or ridiculed.

As Jesus was teaching this to his disciples, his main focus was for us to be more like our Father in heaven. The world has taught us to repay evil for evil, a tooth for a tooth, and tit-for-tat. But Jesus came with a higher principle: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.”

We need to understand that the enemy likes to operate on the lower level. That’s why when your enemies fight you, they enjoy dragging you down, they keep on insulting you and drag your name through the mud, and they just want to keep you in the lower level. No wonder their permanent residence is called hell. On the other hand, God enjoys operating on the higher level. When Jesus taught us this principle “Do to others as you would have them do to you”, His intention was for us to understand the importance of operation on a higher level.

His point was, when your enemy hates you, wanting to pull you down to their lower level, what we ought to do is to rise higher above the hate and go ahead in blessing, and loving them on a higher level. Jesus is showing us that we can rise higher above the hate, the slander, the ill-treatments and all other works of our enemies may do to us.

Jesus desires that the character of God be reflected in us. When our enemies hate us, we should show them love. When our enemies curse us, we should bless them and pray for them even when they ill-treat us.

Jesus says in Matthew 5:14, “You are the light of the world.” Our light should shine brighter in a world where there is so much hate and evil going on. Your light of blessing, doing good and praying for others shouldn’t go dim or go out because you got several people who hate you, or because you got people who are fighting you in order to finish you. Instead, your light which comes from God should shine even brighter when you got enemies around trying to pull you down.

Jesus was persecuted for crimes He didn’t do. He was made fun of, beaten, ridiculed, and people hurled insults at him but he didn’t retaliate. Peter writes, “When he suffered, he made no threats.” And as Jesus endured all these sufferings he says, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” – Luke 23:34. Rather than commanding fire to come from heaven and burn them alive, Jesus chose to pray for them to God the Father for their forgiveness. Jesus taught us this principle and he also demonstrated it that we can love, bless and pray for our enemies even when they continue to persecute us.

Jesus is asking, “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?” There’s a greater reward for us when we decide to rise above the hurt, the pain, the betrayal or insults and choose to repay evil with blessings. 1 Peter 3:9 reads, “Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.”

When we repay evil with evil, we then lose the greater blessings that God has in-store for us. But when we repay evil with blessings, then we are able to inherit the blessings of God. The devil wants us to lose the blessings of God when we choose to repay evil with evil by focusing our minds on the pain and the evil done to us. On the other hand, Jesus wants us to gain the blessings when we choose to repay evil with blessing when we focus our minds on God who sees everything.

Paul also goes ahead and encourages us in Romans 12:19, “Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay.’” How do you show love to your enemies? Proverbs 25:21-22 describes it plainly,

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;

 If he is thirsty, give him something to drink.

In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head,

And the Lord will reward you.”

To do what Christ Jesus taught us like: loving our enemies, praying for them, and repaying evil with good must first come from a place of trust and obedience to God. Psalm 37:3 – “Trust in the Lord and do good.” It may not seem like the easiest thing to do, but when you are tempted to focus on the pain, or the hurt, remember what Christ Jesus did on the cross. He forgave them and prayed for his persecutors.

I pray that the Spirit of God which dwells within us help us to rise higher and overcome evil with good. May we commit ourselves to Christ Jesus and His teachings and act in obedience to his word.