“Oh that’s easy” you might say if that
someone gives you a reason to, but what if he /she does not? Would you still love
him/her?
That’s not so easy. Imagine that a person
says you are a liar, you are good for nothing, calls you the worst epithet,
falsely accuses you, laughs at you, attacks you, does anything to show he hates
you being in his sane mind, would you love him/her at all? It is possible if your love for that person
is real.
That is the real love that many people
feel for their spouses even though they mistreat them or hit them. That is the
love the Word of God talks about in First Corinthian 13, which: “bears
all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.”
(Verse
7). That is the kind of love Jesus showed in the cross when He pleaded
God for the ones who tortured Him: “Father forgive them for they do not know
what they are doing” (Luke 23.34).
Jesus said in the Sermon of the Mount
something that He demonstrated then: LOVE your enemies and PRAY for those who
persecute you. (Mathew 5.44). It
is easy to love a spouse, a son or daughter, a friend . . . but, my enemy . . . the one that’s “killing me”? . . . The one, who thinks, behaves, believes and is
completely different than I am and is against me to the point of even
destroying me? That is difficult, very
difficult to do. But if Jesus asked us to do it is because we can. And if it is
possible to do it I guess I can try and ask God to give me the strength and wisdom
to know how and when to do it.
I am not perfect but since I accepted
Jesus as my Christ and Savior, I know I can do all things through Him who
strengthen me. (Philippians 4.13) He would not have asked us to do
something that is impossible for us as humans to do because that is why He came
to our world to experience what we as humans could do, to be as holy (chosen)
as He wants us to be. And that does not mean to be slow or foolish or to give
ourselves up to the enemy, because Paul, the apostle also said “But
if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he’s thirsty, give him a drink, for in so doing you will heap burning
coals on his head” (Romans 12.20) So, does that mean that by doing him good I am really damaging
him? No. I am making my enemy think things over because if I am capable to love
him, I already won him.
All the advices the Bible gives are perfect.
We are the ones who are not because of the Sin but we could change that by accepting
Jesus, and really doing what Jesus said God commanded us:
“‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your
heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind,’ this is the great and
foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets” (Mathew 22. 37-40)
