Love your Enemies

What is an enemy?  Merriam-Webster defines it as "one that is antagonistic to another, especially one seeking to injure, overthrow, or confound an opponent."  It comes from the Latin word "amicus" (friend) with the prefix "in" (not).  So it means "not friendly."  We generally think of an enemy as someone we are at war against.  Someone on the other side.  These people we can fight against.  An enemy is generally perceived as monstrous, or in some way inhuman.  You can't fight against someone while also seeing them as a fellow human being.  In order to fight, you have to believe that you are justified in hurting them.  That your position is more important than theirs.  That your life is more important than theirs.  You cannot fight in love.  You cannot attack someone in love.  An attack is always a sign of antagonism and can only come from a desire to injure the other person.  Love requires that you wish to protect the person from harm, not to inflict it.  To save them from pain and sorrow, not cause it.  Sometimes this comes at a price to yourself, but love allows you to take the pain and sorrow onto yourself rather than inflicting it on another. 

As Christians, we are taught to love God.  That is pretty easy.  We are taught to love our neighbors.  We learned from Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street that neighbors are nice people.  That's pretty easy also.  But Jesus very clearly told us to love our enemies (Matthew 5:44).  

So enemies are not nice people.  Not friends.  Not God.  Not worried about our well-being.  People who act as though we are monsters.  People that we see as monsters because of the way they treat us.  People who put themselves above us, and their welfare above ours, and even put their wants before our needs.  Just like we understand the word "neighbor" to mean anyone in the world, as Jesus explained through the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), we can have "enemies" who are part of our own household.  Enmity is a state of mind, not a designation of place.  

So what do we do when our enemies are those in our own house?  What if those who should be protecting us are actually the attackers?  

I suppose that most of us have bad days.  Most of us have times when we feel less than generous.  When we are tired or sick or mentally exhausted.  During those times it is hard to act loving even though we know that we should.  During those times, we need others to be loving to us.  But as parents, we cannot let those days govern our behavior to our children.  As spouses, we cannot let those days govern our behavior to our husband or wife.   As Christians, we have to act in love at all times.  

Our family members are not our enemies.  We are bound together in human love.  As Christians, the family bond should be even stronger, because we are also bound in Godly love.  If we are behaving as if our "loved ones" are the enemy, we cannot be following Christ.  They are apparently not loved by us.  We need to ask ourselves what our relationship actually is.  

Jesus told us to love our enemies.  Not to make enemies of our loved ones.  We are held to a higher standard.  We are to give and not take.  To heal and not hurt.  1 Corinthians 13:4-8 reads:

 Love is kind and patient, never jealous, boastful, proud, or rude.

Love isn’t selfish or quick tempered.

It doesn’t keep a record of wrongs that others do.

 Love rejoices in the truth, but not in evil.

Love is always supportive, loyal, hopeful, and trusting.

 Love never fails!

Until we can love like this, we will have trouble in our lives.  We will have broken families.  We will perpetuate the brokenness from generation to generation.  We need to walk in victory in our Lord, Jesus Christ, and break the generational curses and sins that allow us to wallow in selfishness and depression and cause us to harm our family members.  This is especially true for parents, who are responsible for the physical, mental, and spiritual safety of their children.

If you have enmity in your life, look at the source.  It is not from God.  1 John 3:7-10 explains where this comes from:  "Children, don’t be fooled. Anyone who does right is good, just like Christ himself.  Anyone who keeps on sinning belongs to the devil. He has sinned from the beginning, but the Son of God came to destroy all that he has done.  God’s children cannot keep on being sinful. His life-giving power lives in them and makes them his children, so that they cannot keep on sinning.  You can tell God’s children from the devil’s children, because those who belong to the devil refuse to do right or to love each other." 

Do you see how important this is?  1 John 4:19-21 reads:  "We love because God loved us first.  But if we say we love God and don’t love each other, we are liars. We cannot see God. So how can we love God, if we don’t love the people we can see?  The commandment that God has given us is: “Love God and love each other!” 

We have to have love for others.  Some people are hard to love.  We can only truly love because of the love God has given us.  In our humanity, we will always choose our own happiness and comfort over that of anyone else.  But we are not called to live for ourselves.  "Put yourself first" is the Devil's instruction, not God's.  It is the sure path to death and misery.  We have to do better.  This world we live in is under the "me" curse.  Everyone is out for himself.  We can't live like this.  We have to wake up and allow Jesus to lead us into the truth.