Love Your Enemies
Love your enemies as Christ did—choose unity over revenge, unconditional love over hate, and reflect God’s heart in a divided world.
Love Beyond What’s Comfortable
It’s one thing to love people who see the world as you do. When someone shares your values, opinions, or culture, love feels natural. That’s step one. Step two is learning to love those who are indifferent—people who don’t particularly care about you or your perspective. But the call of Christ goes even further: to love those who oppose you, mock you, or stand against you. Real love begins where comfort ends.
The Cost of Conditional Love
The world often says it’s fine to only love those who respect you, agree with you, or treat you well. But that is conditional love. Conditional love divides communities and fuels prejudice, resentment, and violence. It’s easy to see the damage: social disunity, cycles of revenge, and the breakdown of trust. God’s way is different. Unity was His idea, and it requires a love that doesn’t keep score.
Loving the Hardest People
Enemies come in many forms: those who betray our trust, racially abuse us, laugh at us behind our backs, or reject our beliefs. They may live by a completely different moral compass or actively oppose us. Yet the very people who are hardest to love are the ones we’re commanded to love. Not by ignoring the pain or excusing their actions, but by choosing a higher way—responding with prayer, forgiveness, and grace.
Christ’s Example of Enemy-Love
Jesus modelled this perfectly. He didn’t lose himself or compromise the truth, yet he engaged with people who opposed Him with wisdom and emotional intelligence. He loved those covered in shame, those who had lost their way, those despised by society. He disrupted cultural norms by extending grace to the “undeserving.” And ultimately, He died not for His friends but for His enemies. If Jesus had not loved His enemies, there would be no good news for us today.
God’s Love First, Our Love Follows
We never come second when we put God first. His love for us—demonstrated in Christ’s death—empowers us to extend love beyond what we could manage on our own. God loved us when we were still His enemies. That’s the foundation. When we grasp the depth of His love, we gain the strength to love those who hate us. Loving enemies is not about weakness or passivity. It’s about living out God’s radical, transforming love in a divided world.
Love Your Enemies – Conclusion
Loving your enemies is one of the most difficult yet powerful acts of faith. It heals division, silences prejudice, and points to a greater reality: that God’s love is stronger than hate. The challenge is clear—love not just those who love you back, but also those who don’t. That’s how we live as true children of God. Matthew 5:44 – But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
