Love Your Enemies

  

    Many of you will probably be surprised by what I’m about to share, some of you may even hate it. 

    

    In the past few months or so, I’ve learned that we are told to pray for our leaders regardless of our opinion towards them. Jesus said in Matthew‬ ‭5:44 “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,”. A few months ago I would’ve marked anyone who supports our president as racist, sexist, and anything negative, I would not want anything to do with them. But I realized what we think of those on the other side is likely what those people think of us too. Just because someone has a different perspective than you or likes something you don’t does not mean they are bad people, I have come to know those with a different view than I, and they are wonderful people. I am not the biggest fan of our president, but we are told to love our enemies and love our neighbors as ourselves and there must be a reason God either chose or allowed him to be on the throne. A while ago the young adults' service in my church did a sermon about loving our enemies and the lyrics to one of the songs we sang was "When I look into the face of my enemy, I see my brother." That’s right people, our enemy IS OUR BROTHER. Now you might be wondering, what about Satan? Well folks, if the devil is our enemy he would’ve been included when Jesus told us to love our enemies and then He wouldn’t have even said that in the first place, but God has no enemies, Satan is no equal to God and he is not even close to being an enemy.

    I’ve seen people on social media calling democrats words like demoncraps, devilcraps, satancraps, and demonic. While there are things in this world, especially in the occult, that is demonic, calling people with such words does the exact opposite of what Jesus commanded us to do, instead of loving our neighbors, we spread hate and create enemies, instead of loving our enemies, we push them further away. Does that reflect us as Christians? As followers of God? What would outsiders, especially unbelievers, think of us when they see demonizing everything we don't like? Jesus called the Pharisees hypocrites but He never once demonized anyone, not even the demon-possessed man. We all know witchcraft is sinful, but if you see a woman performing such actions, would you say it is the woman who is demonic, or is it the thing she’s doing that is? The woman is just as human as any of us. Is she a sinner? Absolutely, and so are the rest of us. Is she perfect? Absolutely not. Does that make what she does acceptable? Absolutely not. But does the Lord want her to be saved? Absolutely. And does He love her? Absolutely 1000%. Before I rededicated my life back to Christ, I wanted all sorts of terrible things to happen to our president, anything that would get rid of him, I even thought if Queen Ravenna from Snow White and the Huntsman was real she should marry him and kill him just like she does with every king she marries. But that’s not very Christ-like is it? It’s not what Jesus would have done. Loving our neighbor as ourselves includes loving our enemies. To love our enemy is not being okay with what they do and agreeing with them 100%(wouldn’t be called enemies if that were the case), it’s loving them no matter what even when there’s disagreement. The Lord does not like everything we do, oftentimes He hates them, but that doesn’t stop Him from loving us unconditionally. Jesus loves an occultist just as much as He loves those who follow His teachings, He hates the sin but loves the sinner and so should we do the same. Later in the passage, Jesus says to us “For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so?”(Matthew 5:46,47 NKJV) If we only love those who love us, what difference are we from unbelievers? Everyone can love someone who loves them, it is always easier that way, but God did not call us to do what’s easy, He calls us to do what’s right which isn’t always easy. The Lord commands us to love everyone which includes our enemies, so today I am going to challenge you to ask yourself a question. Is there someone I need to love?