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Verse:“But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.” —Matthew 5:44
One of the most challenging components of practical religion is Christ’s radical commandment to love our enemies, as recorded in Matthew 5:43–48.
In this passage, Christ recognized that our natural human tendency is to love those who love us and to hate those who hate us.
But this kind of behavior can have disastrous consequences. If we do not love our enemies, we will most certainly end up hating them; and in hating them, we end up poisoning ourselves. Martin Luther King Jr. warned of this danger in his famous sermon “Loving Your Enemies,” delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, on November 17, 1957. In King’s words, “Hate destroys the very structure of the personality of the hater... Hate at any point is a cancer that gnaws away at the very vital center of your life and your existence. It is like eroding acid that eats away the best and the objective center of your life. So Jesus says love, because hate destroys the hater as well as the hated.”35 We live in a sinful world where “all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution” (2 Timothy 3:12).
Your worst enemy could be in the outside world (John 15:18–25), or very close to you, living under the same roof (Matthew 10:34–36) or perhaps even sleeping in the same bed with you. The question is not so much who the person is, where he or she lives, or how he or she has harmed you. The real question is, How have you handled the situation? Have you responded with poisonous hate or with healing love? In hating others, you confirm that you are a victim of their maltreatment.
By loving them, you demonstrate that you control your circumstances. Choosing to love your enemies is choosing to love not only them but also yourself (Matthew 22:39), proving that you are a son or daughter of your heavenly Father (Matthew 5:44, 45). How different would our world be —including our workplaces, our classrooms, our social circles, our homes, and even our own marriages— if we would forgive more and accuse less, love more and expect less gratification.
You can make the world a better place by sowing seeds of love around you!