Anchor My Faith

Love your Enemies

Scripture: Matthew 5:43, 45; Luke 6:27-28

In our previous lesson, we mentioned the text for this lesson. It is: ^{Mt 5:43} “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ ^{Lk 6:27} But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, ²⁸ bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you, ^{Mt 5:45} so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”

As I study the Scriptures I find that justice and vengeance is the responsibility of God and that if we leave it in his hands then we will be free to love and forgive our enemies. Love and forgiveness cannot coexist with the need of justice and vengeance. As I study the lives of those who are persecuted, I find many who are able to love and forgive those who are persecuting them and making life unbearable for them. A number of years ago I taught Bible in an underground school in Asia and had students whose parents were in prison or had served in prison. These students expected that someday they would also serve time in prison for their faith.

Later in our studies we will hear again and again that as Jesus suffered and as followers of him, we will also suffer and even some of us will die for our faith. This life style is normal in countries of persecution, but here in the west it isn’t and so what Jesus says next is very difficult to accept in our western culture and is simple skipped over when we read the verses.

Jesus says: “love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” Why should we do this? Because we are told to do it? But for what purpose? I believe we have already covered the answer to that question in previous lessons. Jesus trained his disciples to go and share the gospel with the purpose of finding lost sheep in the kingdom of darkness and rescuing them. That task is passed down from disciple generation to the next and thus our primary purpose in life is to build the kingdom of God. Our primary enemies should be those who resist our sharing the gospel in this rescue operation. Some of these loss sheep we are searching for are our enemies initially and as we love them and do good to them, they come to hear about the love of Jesus and experience the beauty of that love and in time they reach out to Jesus for salvation and become a member of the family of God. There are reports of persecutors with very hard evil hearts who have been broken by this principle of loving and doing good. Paul is a good example.

Jesus continues by telling us that we are to “bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” Those blessings are intended to bring our enemy to repentance. Our prayer is to engage God with us to soften their hearts to hear and respond to the gospel.

As sons of our Father it is expected that we are to love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, bless those who curse us, and pray for those who abuse us. We are not to show partiality by separating ourselves from or withholding from those we don’t like. As sinners, we were enemies of God, but he loved us and did good for us by sending his Son to die to purchase our salvation. Today many are dying for their faith and as a result the kingdom of God is growing.

Jesus ends this thought with an example: “For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” Likewise, we are not to show partiality when it comes to love and doing good.

Prayer

Father, this is a very hard lesson for the western believer who embraces the need of comfort, security and safety. Living out the gospel, as expresses in this lesson, will require us to set aside some of the things we embrace as important. Father, help us make that choice correctly and wisely.