Love Your Enemies

https://odb.org/MY/2023/01/19/but-im-telling-you

In Matthew 5:43-48, Jesus taught us to love your enemies as a departure from the then conventional wisdom to love your neighbour but hate your enemy. Popular religion, even till today, still expounds both love and hate together in the sense that if you can love someone, you can also hate someone else. So Germans hated the Jews and that led to the Holocaust in WW2, and the Arabs also hated the Jews and that has led to wars between the Arabs and Israel. Hatred leads us to love our own and our kind and hate not our kind. So, there is animosity among the whites and blacks in the US, and in Malaysia, there is no true unity among the races because there is still deep-rooted distrust and resentment born out of hatred for other races gaining a place in this land that was originally the Malays pre-colonisation by the British.

There is no place for hatred as believers because we are children of God, and God is love. God can get angry, but He has no hatred in Him as ultimately all humanity is His creation. Although He chose the Israelites first, since the death and resurrection of Christ, Jews and Gentiles are equal sons of the Kingdom of God as co-heirs of Christ.

There is Godly wisdom in banishing hatred and replace with only love, instead of having love and hatred going hand in hand. Hatred consumes us from within and may lead us to destructive behaviour. Cain murdered Abel due to jealousy and resentment, but ultimately, it was hatred that drove him to kill. If Cain had only love, he would not have killed Abel. So what if God liked Abel’s offering more? Will killing Abel solve the issue? Will that cause God to love him more?

However, we are all human, and it’s difficult not to hate and resent when we are wronged or bypassed or treated unfairly. It’s is part of the human psyche to love and hate. We could as believers hate sin, but not another human, and the reason is that God loves him too, no matter how evil he may be now. Perhaps one day, he will see the error of his ways and repent and accept Christ?

History has proven that with hatred for fellow humans, wars are started, and lives are lost. No man will kill another if he only had love and no hatred. Accept that we must love even our enemies and learn how to do this in our lives. Since Jesus taught it and it forms the foundation of our faith, having no hatred for other people will only be good for us. It will transform us to be a more caring, understanding, and compassionate person and make us a better believer, one that is transformed and worthy of our crown of righteousness at the finish line of our faith. If we had banished hatred from our hearts, we would have succeeded in becoming more like Christ! It’s definitely a development that will be good for our spirit and soul.