Delve Into Jesus
You are viewing:
 Devotionals : Love Our Enemies Log In Now
encouragement

Love Our Enemies

Posted by arsindelve on 4/24/2008 10:51:13 AM
Devotional Options
 Devotional Rating
5.0 out of 5.0 in 1 votes
Please let us know what you thought of this devotional.
(please log in to vote)
 Subscribe
Get notified whenever there is a new devotional on Delve Into Jesus!
1. RSS Feed - Get the latest devotionals in your news reader here: RSS
2. By Email - Log in now to view or change your subscription status.



If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. 1 John 4:20

"If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?" Matthew 5:46-47

Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. 1 John 3:18

There are so many different types of love, each with many sides and aspects to it. It is one of the many flaws of the English language that we have a single word to describe them all, so I suppose that it's understandable that we often fail to distinguish between that which we feel for our husband or wife, and that which compels us to feed the poor. Where this linguistic limitation has the most impact is where it tricks us into believing that love is a feeling, and worse, one over which we have no control.

It's probably true that we cannot choose whom we love romantically. We fall in love and out of love at the whim of our emotions. Since this is the kind of love with which we are the most familiar (and perhaps the most comfortable), we struggle when we hear Jesus speak of "loving our enemies." A contradiction forms in our mind as we think, "How can I love them? I don't feel a shred of sympathetic emotion for them at all!"

The love of which Jesus speaks is not a feeling in any sense of the word. It is a decision resulting in action. It is a choice you make that has nothing whatsoever to do with how you feel, and quite often, occurs in spite of a feeling to the contrary. This kind of love judges the needs of a person but never the person themselves, and responds according to the gravity of the need, never the character of the person.

Understand that you must absolutely ignore whatever you feel for a person and treat them with as much compassion and kindness as you would show your own mother or child. This is the kind of love that Christ demands -- not a feeling, but rather a spirit of service, selflessness and humility. It is the ability to give to others with no regard to what they can do to repay you, what they feel for you or what you feel for them.

This kind of love is extremely hard. Unlike romantic love, which naturally drives us to do wonderful things for our spouse, loving our enemies goes against what our sinful nature desires us to do. It is far from effortless. Very often, when we stand at the brink of loving our enemies, our sinful nature cries out, "I don't want to do this!" and stands poised to halt our progress. We have to push through it. We have to resist the notion that something so difficult and so contrary to our natural desire could be called "love". It is, in fact the greatest kind of love. It is the kind of love that God demonstrated when he saved us while we were his enemies. (Romans 5:10)

There are opportunities for each of us to put this kind of love into practice every day, but it takes extraordinary courage and faith to even recognize these opportunities, let alone act on them. Imagine a coworker that you simply cannot get along with who is on the verge of making a huge mistake that will get her fired. Our sinful nature revels in this, and tells us that it serves her right. Let her get fired! Yet, if we are to love as God loves, we cannot let this situation unfold. We must intervene and prevent her from making that mistake despite all objections from our emotions. This is not at all what we will "feel" like doing, and that is why it requires such courage and faith. And what reward will we get? Perhaps she will thank us, or perhaps she will tell us to mind our own business. Yet, our love does not expect her appreciation and our motives are simple and pure -- love her as God loves her.

Remember that this kind of love is not about emotion, it is about action. Never stop looking for these opportunities to act in your life, and don't give in to the nagging voice which insists that love is always easy and always rewarding. Don't stop when you are on the brink of kindness because it doesn't feel right, for it often doesn't. This kind of love can be hard and uncomfortable, but it is the most important of all, for it is by this kind of love that others will know that Christ lives in you.

Comments


I enjoy the reading.

Cheryl from Newport News, Va
anonymous- 4/24/2008 5:09:52 PM

This is exactly what I was thinking about and going thru. This word was really prophetic for me....from India.
anonymous- 4/24/2008 11:55:37 PM

It the word of GOD siplified.
anonymous- 4/25/2008 12:57:58 PM

I have plenty of opportunity at the job I'm in.
anonymous- 4/26/2008 7:36:20 AM

This was good reading for me because I am dealing with this with my boss and it is very hard. I am always kind to her, but she is constantly mean and nasty.
anonymous- 4/28/2008 8:38:42 AM

Thank you. I am struggling. I have been put in a situation where I have to love my enemies. My husband and a friend who had an affair. I feel as though I have died. Prior to that, I'd felt abandoned by him, neglected and disregarded. piled with responsibilities beyond what I could support. I had not partnership from him as a guiding parent. Uneaqually yoked in discipline and moral standards as parents. The loneliness was killing me and I was spiraling into depression, negativity, anger, and aching pain. I am not proud of the avenue I took as a Christian. I should have had more faith, and acted on love then. I only dug a deeper grave for myself and my marriage. My marriage topped off with that affair and a near seperation.
I want to love, forgive. I have. I still hurt. Yet, everytime pain finds me. Christ steps in. His love surrounds me, reminds me of his forgiveness, comforts me, and enables me to humble myself and apply actively his word each minute of my life. Praise Jesus.
anonymous- 4/28/2008 8:25:22 PM

Very insightful for me, and so true, I needed to be reminded of the kind of love that God expects from us, in this troubling and turbulant world that we live in, and evil of every side, I find myself having a difficult time showing love to what appears to be a callous humanity, we are so self-involved and uncaring of our fellow man it's a tragedy, and even as Christians we sometimes can't tell the diffrence in what is experienced from the world and between one another, let us all pray for one for another!
anonymous- 4/29/2008 12:12:35 AM

I'm very good at loving those around me that I WANT to love. I have failed on so many occasions to love the people I don't want to love or the ones who make me very uncomfortable. I will definitely read this every day until it registers in my stubborn brain...
Whoever reads this...please pray for me..my name is Tino.
THanks.
anonymous- 4/29/2008 3:10:13 PM

This was great reading. I am dealing with my ex-husband - who has shared custody of our kids - they are with me one week and him the next, back and forth - yet he still is seeking revenge on me for divorcing him (he does not believe in God, is an alcholic, and a very angry, negative person)......seeking revenge on the people who stood up with me in court - he wanted me dead and thretened to hurt me and I had a TPO against him and in court his lawyer requested a settlement to drop the charges, which I did based on his going to anger management and a personal counselor - and so it was court ordered.

However, he is not attending the counseling - I am going but he is not - and he is seeking revenge on all those that tesitfied against him.

How do I continue to forgive, continue to open myself and my kids up for his revenge, how do I know when I am just being a wimp and when I am trusting God?
anonymous- 5/1/2008 12:00:39 PM

I understand this kind of Love but putting it into action is a very difficult. I find it very difficult to Love those who are my enemies because I would like some type of appreciation in return; This rarely happens and I get dissapointed. It seems the world we are living in today is cold and uncaring, somtimes just looking around at my environment (I live in the city) I feel a deep pain for humanity - people are suffering so much today, somtimes silently - they need help, prayer, and comfort; we as christians cannot expect anything in return (even though it is human nature to expect somthing) because often people do not know how to show their appreciation. I have a situation in my own life where I put aside my own needs to help someone through a horrible time in their life, once they were on the other side it seemed as if they never knew me. This hurt very much, I continued to pray daily and allow the holy spirit to guide me daily
I am still getting through this situation because I see the person on a daily basis. This person almost died - I was there by there side through thick and thin. I believe this is a experience that I must learn from - unconditional Love - Giving of yourself without expecting anything in return.
anonymous- 5/1/2008 5:40:21 PM

In this reading, I am reminded of God's unconditional love because sometimes so much pain would bring you to hating everything around you that caused the hurt. I am experiencing it now. There are those people that despite the good things that you have done to them, they will repay you with evil. They would even plot against you, worst of all you would see them laughing as if they're winning. The pain, the anger, the hatred develops to bitterness which would make your heart so cold to forgive them much more love them. Yet, in this reading I've come to realize that me too, God forgave and loved. This is a very hard command but God's grace will see us through to follow His will!
anonymous- 5/2/2008 11:03:30 PM

Thank you. I am in a relationship with a man and his family members and I don't like each other. More so his sister, than anyone else. Reading this devotional really spoke volumes to me and I know I have alot of work ahead of me, for it is difficult to love someone who is always passing judgement and speaking ill of you.
anonymous- 5/3/2008 4:48:03 PM

That was really good and we should love our enemies even though they don't like you.
anonymous- 5/5/2008 9:20:26 PM

Thank you so much for the word today. I have really enjoyed reading it, much as other I have struggled down through the years to Love and to let go and let God, As I have gotten a closer relationship with my savior my prayer daily is for him to teach me how to Love as he has Loved. And the emenies that I once was not speaking to, now I am speaking and giving God the Glory and the praise for it I knew that I could not do these things myself but I put it in God hand and he worked it out. Even my x-husband I had so much anger builded in me, now we can talk with each other about the childrens. Now I'm praying that my mother and I can have the same relationship someday, she has no relationship with me or her grandchildren for not forgiving her pass failure for not raising me. But I have forgiven her. But still I say God you work it out I can't fix it, but you can.
anonymous- 5/7/2008 11:06:58 AM

When I started reading this the first thing that came into mind is the hate I have for Muslim terroists and the whole Isalmic religion. I feel very gulity about this hate and find it very difficult to pary for them. To top it all my eldest son is stationed in Iraq and if he dies there...I feel helpless.

In addition, I want to love them emotionaly as well and I just can't. How can I do for them? I don't want to kill them, not all the time anyway, but I fully believe that in their collective hearts, that's what they want to do to me as a struggling Christain in this area. How can I put in practice with people who would rather kill me than listen or talk to me? How can I put into practice love with a people who prefer to show ungratefulness than gratitude? How can I love a people who demands aid from my country and receives it, but is still bent on destroying the foundation that allows my country to aid them?

I need away...to express as my actions are tied to my emotions.

anonymous- 5/7/2008 11:37:36 AM

I wrote the previous comment about hating Muslims and the Isalamic religion and people as a whole.

I prayed about it and came to the realization that not loving these people is an act of disobedience on my part and I am in sin. Who cares about my feelings? It is as James said, I have no claim on God whom I have never seen, if I cannot love my brother or fellow man whom I have seen, no matter is background. (My interpretation)

Thanks for helping me pass that, now I pray that my actions will show that.
anonymous- 5/7/2008 11:50:13 AM

Thank you for this message

I am struggling to forgive and love my enemies especially a nephew in particularly, twice he has left his wife and children to following his own desires by having relationships with other male genders. His home again with his family. but to date i have not spoken to any of them in time as i continue to read Gods word that he would instill that kind of love that he has for all.
anonymous- 5/9/2008 1:27:07 PM

Have something you want to say about this devotional? Please don't by shy - go ahead and leave a comment! Don't forget that our forum is also open if you want to join or start a discussion.


 



Links:  Home  Discovery  Questions  Articles  Prayer  Discussion  Devotionals  Resources  About
Gospel.com Community Member