Enemies

"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,” Matthew 5:43-44

Love my enemies? Hold on a second, I can understand the “pray for those who persecute you” part, but, love my enemies? I’m supposed to love someone who wants me dead, and maybe just because of my belief in Jesus? I guess the only way to even begin to understand that concept is to see it from God’s eternal view, and I find that requires a great deal of faith, sometime more than I can muster on my own.

Dealing with someone I just don’t agree with is easy as Paul’s admonitions on how to treat those who we just don’t like because they don’t “pull their own weight.” Yet do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother 2 Thessalonians 3:15 But for those who truly hate me, my God, and my very way of life, I sometimes feel like David pleading with God to remember His people during the Babylonian exile, How long will the enemy mock you, O God? Will the foe revile your name forever? Psalm 74:10 The very survival of Christians, Christianity and nations like the United States founded on Judeo-Christian beliefs for the past two thousand years has been primarily our adherence to the concept in Ecclesiastes 4:12 Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. Our bonds of Christian unity are critical in times like these.

I sometimes ask myself, as enemies closes in around, how will this end? I think of God’s promise to Moses during the exodus regarding the angel God sent ahead to protect them. If you listen carefully to what he says and do all that I say, I will be an enemy to your enemies and will oppose those who oppose you. Exodus 23:22, and I rest confident that there is no enemy more powerful than my God. And finally I consider Peter’s reminder of who the real enemy is to be feared. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. 1 Peter 5:8-9

Bless you brothers, live this day in peace, in His Word.

Jerry M. Gill

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