The rest of the day, I remembered several people I had no love for, from the always annoying person I share a church community with to the terrorists who kill innocent people.
Jesus tells us: You have heard that it is said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and the good and rains on the just and the unjust.
The Gospel of Matthew chapter 5, verses 43-45
It's probably the hardest commandment in scripture! Because we often fail to love people who are not our enemies. So how can enemy love ever find a place in my life?
Loving our enemies requires divine intervention in our hearts. It is the intervention that many of our persecuted brothers and sisters have prayed for and then experienced when they come face to face with evil and those who wish them harm.
It is a love that only God can give by his Holy Spirit. We should pray for it when we are upset by the evil around us.
Loving our enemies requires death to our perceived right to be judges and executioners of other people's actions and opinions.
We will never succeed in loving our enemies if the power of the cross, the sacrifice of Jesus, does not overcome our self-proclaimed righteousness. We need to be reminded of the relationship we had with Christ before we became Christians. Namely, that we ourselves were enemies of God.
We know the result of our enmity with God: "For while we were yet his enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son..." Romans 5:10
It opens the door ajar so we can go the extra mile with the one we have the hardest time with. So we can give food and drink to those who persecute our siblings in the Muslim world. We get into a position where we can bless them.
This was the experience of a priest in the Muslim world, with whom the Danish European Mission cooperates, when Islamists wanted to kill him. They said: "Pray your last Christian prayer before we kill you!"
The priest began to pray aloud for his executioners, for their wives and families. Finally they stopped him and said: "What are you doing? You bless us and pray for us! We can't kill you."
Are there any people that you find it impossible to love with God's love?
Palle Flyger is a lecturer and tour guide at the Danish European Mission.
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