Growing up, my mom would frustratingly say to me, “I don’t always like you, but I will always love you.” As a single mother of two boys, when the teenage years came around, well… I was a bit of a brat. Like the people in the book of Judges, I did what was right in my own eyes. Unfortunately for my mom, I very rarely considered how it might affect her. Despite the nights I kept her up all night laughing loudly with friends in our small home, or showing up after curfew without letting her know where I was, she kept her promise. She never stopped loving me.
In fact, looking back, she treated me far better than I deserved. Whether or not that phrase is good to say to your kids is debatable, but 20 years later, it stuck as a memorable display of grace.
Two thousand years ago, on a remote mountainside in northern Israel, Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount pushed the envelope on what a loving person should really look like. He challenged us to love not only our family and friends who annoy us, but Jesus challenged us to love our enemies.
“But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.”
Matthew 5:44-45 NIV
To Jesus’ audience, Jews living in a Roman-occupied nation, this was an offensive suggestion. The Jews had very little doubt about who their enemies were. The Romans, after all, forced their way into their nation and subjugated the Jewish people of Israel. Since the Romans began their occupation of Israel in 63 BC, Jews in Israel attempted multiple insurrections to force out the Romans, all to no avail. They were forced to see their captors patrolling their streets, governing their lands, and enforcing Roman laws. Throughout their history, the Jewish people have always had a plentiful supply of enemies—even to this day.
Know Thy Enemy
But in our own lives, it’s not always as clear who our enemies are. In fact, a lot of people today would draw a blank if you ask them, “Who is your enemy?” We may know the enemies of our country, but when asking about our personal enemies, that’s a different question.
According to Google, the word enemy is defined as “a person who is actively opposed or hostile to someone or something.” In layman's terms, an enemy is someone who is working against you. Someone who is unfriendly towards you. Someone who, when given the chance, would speak or act in a way that would harm you or your reputation to others.
When we truly flesh out what an enemy is, it becomes a whole lot easier to think of a few faces. Maybe you have walked into a room and heard people gossiping about you at some point in your life. Perhaps you have caught someone in the act of sabotaging your efforts at work. Or maybe you know someone who is actively working to make your life difficult.
What is interesting in this passage is that Jesus doesn’t command us not to have enemies! You would think Jesus would tell us not to think of others as enemies, but that isn’t the case at all. Jesus Himself had enemies. He had people who were waiting for Him to slip up at every moment, eager for a chance to prove Him a fraud. He had people who made up lies, saying He was possessed by demons. He even had people plotting to take His life.
It's more than a feeling…
Jesus instead commands us to love our enemies. What exactly does that mean exactly? If you are like me at various points in my life, you may be looking for a loophole. To be clear, love in the Bible is an action, not an emotion or a feeling. Love is something we choose to do. While emotions and feelings often accompany our love, our emotions are not something we can so easily choose.
On some level, that is comforting. It would be very challenging to will ourselves into feeling loving emotions for someone who actively works to harm you. On another level, it’s still incredibly difficult to choose to act lovingly toward someone you are angry with or hurt by.
Dive into the Mess
Before I became a pastor, I worked for a mold remediation company to clean up mold in people’s homes. I would put on a white Tyvek suit looking like a guy going into a radiation zone, squeeze into people’s crawl spaces or attics, and vacuum mold that was seeping through their floors and ceilings. It was a dirty job, to say the least. In that job, I was asked to do things like clean up dead animals, wade into moldy water, and clean a 150-degree attic. But I never complained. Why? Because I knew that no matter what my boss, George, asked me to do, he would never ask me to do something he wouldn’t do himself.
Jesus was the same way. He would never ask us to do something He wouldn’t do Himself. Jesus called us to “love one another as I have loved you” (John 13:34). This is particularly fitting because the Bible makes it clear that “before we accepted Jesus into our lives, we were God’s enemies, deserving of his wrath” (Romans 5:10).
It's only due to Jesus’ actions that His followers are no longer enemies of God. When Jesus died on the cross, He was demonstrating His love for us (Romans 5:8). A love not for His friends, but for His enemies.
Amazing Grace
Jesus taught us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us (Matthew 5:44-45 NIV). When Jesus was hanging on the cross, He pleaded with God for His captors, praying, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34 NIV). In a million ways throughout His life, Jesus showed the world it was possible to love your enemies. God had every reason to unleash His righteous anger toward us. But despite that, Jesus chose to serve us. He chose to show compassion. He chose to save us from our own wickedness.
Matthew 5:45 (NIV) says that when we love others, we show ourselves to be “children of our Father in heaven.” When we choose to love like Jesus, we reveal ourselves to be God’s children, following in our Father’s footsteps.
The amazing grace of Jesus is that He chose to love us even when we didn’t deserve it. Perhaps there are people in your life who don’t deserve your love. People who hurt you or angered you. People that, if you are being honest, you don’t even want to be around. Jesus makes it clear that these people are opportunities for us to reveal that we are truly “children of our Father in heaven.”
As you go throughout your week, I challenge you to pray for those you don’t like. Not the Davidic prayers in the psalms, “Strike down my enemies!”, but rather pray that God would bless them and give you opportunities to be a blessing in their lives. Then take every opportunity to pursue good things for them. In doing so, you will follow in the footsteps of Jesus showing yourself to be a child of your Father in heaven.
