Can We Really Love Our Enemies?

by Jim Gordon

As Christian people who want to follow the example of Jesus, we know that we are to love our enemies. We are to be kind to those who use us. We are to turn the other cheek. Of course, knowing and doing are two different things.

The dictionary describes an enemy as a person who feels hatred for, fosters harmful designs against, engages in antagonistic activities against; or an adversary or opponent.

An enemy can go from someone who rubs you the wrong way all the way to someone who wants to literally kill you. How is it possible to love our enemies when we think about the more extreme sense of the word?

In all honesty, we cannot do it. In our own human ways, we are incapable of loving people like God asks us too. We have a hard enough time loving people who are different from us in minor ways such as beliefs, doctrines, political parties, race, gender, sex, nationality, you know, the everyday normal things that so many want to argue over and fight against.

In some cases, we can make up our mind to look past someone who treats us bad. We can choose to treat them in a kind way, help them when they have a problem, support them any way we can. We can walk away rather than argue. We can smile and be pleasant rather than give them a dirty look or flip them off. It is within our human power to make a choice to treat others as we would like to be treated. There are other times when, in our own strength, it is just impossible to be loving.

Without the love of the Father living within us, and without us denying our natural human tendencies, we will not be able to truly love our enemies. Yet, the power of the Spirit living within us is more than able to do what we cannot do in our own strength.

Obviously, we look to our role model, Jesus, and see how he lived. He truly loved people. It did not matter if they agreed with him, if they were despised by the general population, if they hated him, or if they put him to death. He loved mankind. He came with the purpose to show the love of the Father to a fallen world. As John 3:16 reads, for God so loved the world.

We have to come to an end of ourselves, just as in the case of grace. We need to depend on the strength of the Spirit who is within us. We need to remember that humanity was created in the image of God and that we are all loved by God.

It is because of the love of God that lives within us that we can love our enemies. We are one with God and it is his spirit that loves through us, just as Jesus did when he walked the earth.

So, loving our enemies is mostly something we are unable to do apart from the love and strength of the Spirit that lives within us. Yet, with his strength we can fulfill the command of Jesus to love God and love one another.

Jim Gordon and his wife left the institutional church after spending over fifty years within the system. Jim wanted a way to express his thoughts and concerns about the religious system and why he and his wife decided to leave the institution but not their faith in God. Jim can be contacted by email at: jimgordon731@gmail.com