Loving Your Neighbor as YourselfSample

Loving your neighbor includes loving your enemy

In His sermon on the mount, Jesus makes it really clear that the commandment to love our neighbor really is without exception. Even if people treat us badly, if they take our belongings, curse us, or abuse us… we should still love them. That’s not to say we are never allowed to defend ourselves, or even that we should seek suffering. But we should not retaliate.

As Christians, we should expect to meet hostility. As Jesus says in John 15:19: “If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you”. Jesus says this should not surprise us, since we are treated just as badly as our Lord and Savior was. And our reaction should also be the same as God’s: “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful”. “He is kind to the ungrateful and the evil” (Luke 6:35 and 36).

That goes against any human logic or natural inclination. Loving people who are kind to you, that’s fine with most people. But loving your enemies… that feels like too much. By loving their enemies, Christians clearly set themselves apart from ‘the world’. But not only the outside world, also our own ‘old self’ is often protesting against this commandment. Therefore, let’s consider some helpful perspectives and some inspiring examples in the next pages of this Reading Plan.