Love for your enemies - Day 9

“But I say to you who hear: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you.”
Luke 6:27-28
 
Jesus gives a relatively simple command in this passage, but it is often a very difficult one to obey. How many of us hear the words “Love your enemies” and we immediately think of the person we consider to be our enemy and think to ourselves “There is no way in the world I am sending any type of love toward that person!”. If we take the approach Jesus gives us in this passage though, we might start to shift our perspective no matter what comes against us.
 
Jesus paints a very simple picture of 3 ways we can show love towards those we call our enemies. He says we can do good things towards them, we can bless them and pray for them. He recognizes that we will all have enemies at some point. It is inevitable. He knows at some point we are going to have people call us names, treat us badly, talk behind our back, curse us, use us, hate us and ty to sabotage our lives. Even though we will have enemies come against us, we must choose the response of love. When we choose love, we also choose trust. We trust that God will protect our cause no matter what our enemies do to us.
 
Jesus isn’t expecting us to have warm fuzzy feelings towards our enemies. If we wait for that, we may never actually show them love. The love we should show them is a love that does something for them despite how we feel about them or what they have done to us.
 
The other day I was venting out loud too myself and to God about someone I consider to be my enemy. I could tell I had built up a lot of hate and resentment towards this person when all of a sudden, I felt a tug on my heart and a whisper in my spirit from God saying “Pray for them”. My response was “What?! You want me to pray for them?! But I really don’t like them and they have really done so many terribly mean things to me, but if you want me to God I will.” So I began to pray for them and God began to change my heart and perspective towards them. He began to show me things that made me see that maybe they weren’t really my enemy after all, they were just human and I allowed their human responses towards me to affect me negatively. I no longer see this person as my enemy anymore even when they do things that could give them the credit for it.
 
Prayer is powerful. It can change your heart and your perspective. Even towards your enemies. I pray that you take the things that Jesus told us to do toward our enemies and apply them to your life today.
 
Prayer: “Dear Lord, help me to choose to love my enemies today. When they show hatred toward me, curse me, and use me. Help to choose to do good towards them, bless them and pray for them. Help my prayers to change my heart and my perspective. In Jesus name, Amen”  

Day 9
Written by P. Ryan Moore