Psalm 40Sample

An enemy can be someone we don’t even know (a terrorist, for example), or he or she can be under our own roofs. An enemy can be a parent, a neighbor, or someone we work with. If we have a personal enemy, it’s likely he or she has hurt us in a deep way, and we are valid in our feelings of caution. Anger is honest. If someone hurts my child, I might feel anger or disdain toward that person. If someone abused me, I might feel anger toward him or her.

God wants us to bring these honest feelings to Him so that they no longer consume us.

In Matthew 5, how does Jesus tell us to treat our enemies?

The Jewish Encyclopedia notes, “Kindness bestowed upon an enemy is called ‘heaping coals of fire upon his head,’ since it tends to waken his deadened conscience and help him to realize his wrong.”1 God uses grace and kindness to lead us to repentance (Rom. 2:4). 

Loving our enemies is impossible for us to do on our own. We need God to empower us to do it. And, let’s be honest, it sometimes makes no sense to us. Why would God possibly ask us to love the people who hurt us the most? Who wants to love the person who causes us trouble at work, the person who hurt our child, or the person who has violated us? Who wants to love the abusive father, the alcoholic mother, the bully, or the terrorist? What is God thinking?

Remember what we read in Matthew 5:43-48? When we love our enemies, we are acting like our Father in heaven who not only tells the sun to rise and the rain to fall on the just and the unjust alike, but who reached out to us and made us His children when we were His enemies (Rom. 5:10). The Matthew 5 passage shows us that God uses loving our enemies as a way to make us look more like Him, chipping away our earthiness to create more of His character in us. It’s God’s blessing—working even the hard things for the good of His children.

Trust. Do we trust the Lord to deal with our enemies? Do we believe God will use these hard circumstances for our good? Or do we believe it’s solely up to us to make things OK?

1. W. N., “Coal,” The Jewish Encyclopedia, Volume IV (New York: Funk and Wagnalls Co., 1903), 124.