The Hardest Thing

OK ladies, I have to admit - I picked the "hardest thing" I read in these two chapters for me to do - Love your enemies. True confession? Absolutely - but I'm not proud of it!

In Luke 6:27, Jesus instructs us to love and to do good to our enemies, to those who detest and pursue us with hatred. I dare say that most of us do not have these kind of enemies - those that want to kill us or physically harm us. Thank heavens we don't meet those people every day! But enemies may include those who treat you unjustly. Enemies may be those who live under the same roof who day in and day out make life difficult for you, who betray you, or are mean to you. Jesus expects us to love these people. We are to pray for good things to be in their lives. We are to be kind to those people.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Treat people the way you would like to be treated - not the way they deserve to be treated. What if God treated us as we deserve? We'd all be doomed. But He has shown us grace, and now expects us, as his followers, to show that same grace to the world in His name.

Hatred and anger are powerful emotions - and when we allow them to rule our lives, we will not be able to yield to the love that God tells us we must display. And even though this is not easy - it is possible. And who makes it possible? Our Father. How can this be possible? Only through the Holy Spirit living in us. God not only makes it possible - He has shown us the way. He gave us His own example of loving at Calvary. Mocked, blasphemed, cursed - and what did Jesus do? He prayed for them: Father forgive them. Not only did He pray for them, but He gave an "excuse" to the Father on their behalf. Father, forgive them for they know not what they do!

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a master at addressing the subject of loving your enemies - he made it a life vocation. The following is an excerpt from a sermon that he gave in Alabama on Nov. 17, 1957 on the subject of loving your enemies:

And this is what Jesus means, I think, in this very passage when he says, "Love your enemy." And it's significant that he does not say, "Like your enemy." Like is a sentimental something, an affectionate something. There are a lot of people that I find it difficult to like. I don't like what they do to me. I don't like what they say about me and other people. I don't like their attitudes. I don't like some of the things they're doing. I don't like them. But Jesus says love them. And love is greater than like. Love is understanding, redemptive goodwill for all men, so that you love everybody, because God loves them. You refuse to do anything that will defeat an individual, because you have agape in your soul. And here you come to the point that you love the individual who does the evil deed, while hating the deed that the person does. This is what Jesus means when he says, "Love your enemy." . . .

This loving thing is not a "suggestion" nor is it a "recommendation." It's a real command. He expects us to do it. It's not easy. How can we learn to love our enemies and do good to those who mistreat us? How can we learn to bless those who curse us and to pray for those who use us? The word bless in the Greek is eulogeo (yoo-log-eh'-0), and it means to speak well of.

We must learn to pray for them and ask God to bless our enemies. Praying for those who do us wrong breaks the power of revenge and helps us to do good in the face of evil. God's love embraces saints and sinners alike. And because we are made "in the image of God," we must show kindness and mercy to those we think of as our "enemies." Because we are representatives of Christ, we must learn to love our enemies. We must understand how important it is to show our family resemblance to those that are unlovable in our eyes. Remember - love covers a multitude of sins.