Loving Your Enemies: One of the hardest Teaching of the Bible
Loving Your Enemies: One of the hardest Teaching of the Bible
INTRODUCTION
One of the most challenging and important
commandments of the Bible is to love our enemies. Loving our family, loving our
friends and loving those who are good to us is very simple for us as humans.
But loving those who betrayed us, disappointed us, those who hurts us becomes
very hard for us. The most way we use is to treat those who wronged us with
anger or revenger. However, Jesus teaches something different: to love our
enemies and praying for them. This teaching is very challenging for us yet very
important. To live according to God’s will is to love everyone and treat
everyone with no hate. Instead of responding hate with anger, Jesus tells us to
offer mercy, love and prayers to those who wronged us. For some of us this
commandment feels impossible. We do not understand how, we can love someone who
have betrayed or wronged you. We do not understand how we can forgive easily to
those who hurts us. The Bible is not telling us to ignore everything. The Bible
teaches us that loving enemies is not pretending like nothing have ever
happened. It means choosing God’s path of offering mercy and letting go of
revenge. The scripture teaches one important thing, to overcome the evil with
the good. This means letting the kindness win over anger. Loving our enemies does
not make us weak. It is the powerful way to choose in order to follow Christ.
Why
Jesus Commands us to love our Enemies
Jesus does demand us to love our friends
only. He teaches us that love is for everyone inclusively. True that Jesus tell
us does not discriminate anyone. True love that Jesus want is to love everyone
regardless on his or her character or personality. Jesus reminds us that loving
people who only love us does not make us different from other. If we love only
the people, we know or the people who take care of us will be the same like
people who does not love anyone at all. Even people who does not believe in God
are able to love their friend and family. The real hard think loves those who
hurts us. Jesus knows that loving our enemies is not easy. However, Jesus wants
us to reflect our lives to God. God loves everyone. He does not care if we are
good or bad people, he treat us all the same. As God perform miracles to good
people that is how he also perform miracles to the evil people. God’s love
includes anyone. It is not limited to only certain people. God’s love is
universal to everyone. God created us in his own image. God have unconditional
love to everyone. When we love our enemies, we try to show the love that God
shows us. We do not have to do this because the Bible instructs us to do so, we
have to do this because we choose to follow God’s path.
Loving God is the way of representing God’s
love to the earth.
What
does loving enemies really means
Sometimes, we often misunderstand this
teaching. Loving our enemies is not about acting as if nothing is okay. Loving
our enemies tell us to deny the pain they caused to us. Loving our enemies does
not mean we have to ignore our pain. Instead, the Bible tells us that kindness
have to win anger. It is fine if you love your enemy and maintain the distance
with them so that they do not hurt you again. It is allowed to love your
enemies set the boundaries to protect yourself. However, it does not mean you
have to do it with anger. You can love someone and create distance. In the
Bible, they teach us to help our enemies when they need a help. This teaches to
put love always first. Hatred does not have to come first in our lives. Loving
our enemies means recognizing our enemies’ value as person not as a threat. The
Bible teaches us to put the hare behind and put the love always first. As we said,
loving our enemies does not mean tolerating the injustice again or behaving passive
to our enemies. It means living according to God’s will and choosing forgiving
above all. Loving our enemies involves performing the following actions:
1. Refusing revenge: Loving our enemies means to choose love over revenge. The Bible
teaches us that the revenge is for God. We do not have to avenge for ourselves.
The act of a good Christian is repaying hatred with kindness.
2. Choosing Forgiveness: Loving our enemies teaches us to forgive them regardless on their
mistake. Forgiving our enemies does not mean we are ignoring what they have
done to us. It means choosing forgives above all as God always chooses to
forgive us.
3.
Praying for those who hurts us: It is
very hard to pray for those who hurts us but the Bible encourages praying for
those who do not like us and those who does not wish any good for us. Prayers
changes everything, it helps us to handle those who causes pain to us. Praying
for enemies enables us to soften our hearts and accept our enemies as they are.
4.
Responding with kindness: Loving our
enemies means putting first above everything. Showing kindness to people who
hurts us enabling to end conflict and hatred
for those who wronged us.
Loving our enemies is not about pretending
like nothing happen. It is about being aware of what happened and choose to
follow God’s path by forgiving and loving everyone even If they hurt us. The
love we show to our enemies shows how we fulfill our purpose.
Why
is it difficult to love our enemies?
The commandment of loving our enemies comes
as a challenge to us because it sometimes disagree with our emotional thinking.
When someone hurts us, we sometimes want to repay pain with revenge, we become
angry with them. Sometimes might be of pain comes from betrayal, disappointment
or personal disagreement. In these kind of situations, loving our enemies feels
impossible. We most of the time believe that, if someone wrongs us, we have to
repay them what they did to us. However, the Bible disagree with this. The
Bible tells to even pray for good to our enemies. Without the spiritual
guidance, we cannot understand why this matters. Knowing God means living to
his character and God’s character is forgiveness so that is why it is necessary
to love our enemies. The other reason forgiving our enemies become hard, it is
because of the pride and ego. Our ego tells us that forgiving our enemies is
the sign of weakness. We most of the time believe showing our kindness means
that we are being weak or we are over offering. However, the Bible teaches one
thing that remain humble is the sign of spiritual growth, choosing forgiving
and letting go of the anger makes us reflect to God’s mercy. It takes a great
responsibility to end the hate and spread love. And one thing holding to the
pain makes the situation worse. When we do not accept what happened and forgive
our enemies, it makes us remain in pain and hate. Healing does not happen in an
easy way, it requires a time to pray, forgiving and loving again. God knows
that we struggle with forgiving that is why he offers spiritual guidance in our
lives.
Jesus
as a good example of loving enemies
In the Bible, we know that not everyone
loved Jesus. There were many times, people chased him away from the cities
because they did not believe in him. Jesus was insulted many times and many
people falsely accused him. They were many times Jesus was tempted when they
asked him religious questions so that they arrest him. They crucified him to
death. At the time of death, he did not wish bad thing for those who crucified
him; he prayed to God to forgive them. This moment teaches us one important
thing: Love is powerful than hate. Love can end conflict among people. Jesus
chose to forgive to show us that whatever problems we have with our enemies, we
have to forgive them. Jesus show us that forgiving is not a symbol or just a
random theory. Forgiving our enemies should be in our moral principles. For us
believers, Jesus should be a great example for us to forgive and love everyone
no matter if they are good or evil.
The
Benefits of loving our Enemies
Although forgiving our enemies is a
challenging task for us, it produces most of the powerful spiritual fruits.
Forgiving our enemies frees our hearts. It makes us release all the anger and
soften our hearts. Anger and holding resentments against our enemies blocks our
hearts from spreading love or even receiving love. Holding anger for too long
takes our peace and happiness away. Choosing to forgive is process of healing
ourselves and open our hearts again. The second good thing about forgiving our
enemies is that, it can change the relationships. Showing kindness to people
who hates us can change them to be good people again and this can be a way of
reconciliation with our enemies. The third benefit of forgiving our enemies is
that, as Christian believers our faith is evaluated from what we do. Forgiving
our enemies shows that, we are reflecting to God’s character of forgiving.
How
can we love our Enemies?
Loving our enemies feel easier when we say
it in words rather than implementing it. However, here are some of the ways
Bible shows us to love our enemies.
1. Praying more often: Praying for those who hurt us can be somehow weird if we do that on
the first time. However, as more we continue to pray for them, it becomes a
normal thing and it help us to move on and forgive them easily.
2. Asking God for Strength: Asking God for strength and guidance can help us to love and forgive
our enemies. God wants us to love each other so when ask Him to help us to love
our enemies; He is not going to hesitate to help us to find a way to forgive
them.
3. Choosing peace over
conflict: Choosing peace over conflict can be an
easy way to settle the disagreement with those who wronged us. Sometimes, it is
more mature to choose peace in everything and this should be like a principal
morality as us Christians.
4. Practicing patience: Being patient come be a better way of healing. Controlling our
emotions and promoting peace can be a better and easy way to love our enemies.
5. Remembering how God forgave us: when having problem with our
enemies, we should remember how God forgave us. And by thinking so it is not
going to be hard for us to forgive enemies.
CONCLUSION
Loving our enemies is one of the most
challenging teachings of the Bible because it come as an opposite of what we
believe. When someone betray us, the first thing we think is repaying them for
hurting us. Anger makes us think bad things about people who hurts us. However,
what Jesus tells us is different. Jesus
encourages us to love our enemies as we love anyone else. Jesus teaches us to
respond hate with love. This involves loving our enemies, praying for them and
wishing them good. This commandment does neglect or ignore our personal
feelings. Instead, it shows us how to deal with our personal feelings in
solving our problems. Jesus showed us the example of loving our enemies, the
time he died on the cross. So if Jesus was able to forgive those who crucified
them that should be an example for us to forgive our enemies. Forgiving our
enemies protects our hearts from holding our anger and this shows how are
faithful we are on Jesus Christ. Loving our enemies should be in our moral
principles. Loving our enemies is the journey that takes us closer to God. By
faith and prayers, God help us for loving our enemies.
Comments