Peace with Our Enemies

“But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.”  (Luke 6:27-28)

 The path to finding peace with our enemies begins with a right understanding of our position before God.  If we have any sense of self-righteousness, any false confidence in our own virtue, we will be in a position to think more highly of ourselves than we ought and look down on everyone else.  We must consider that we were enemies of God when Jesus came to save us, “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God.  All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” (Romans 3:10-12).  We were undeserving of God’s mercy when He gave it to us so abundantly, even to the point of death on a cross.  The first step to being at peace with our enemies is to recognize the fact that we were once enemies of God, and would still be so, if Jesus hadn’t humbled Himself, become one of us, and die in our place for our sins.  “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.” (Romans 5:10). 

Jesus repeatedly told us to forgive our enemies.  When He taught us how we should pray in Matthew 6, He included “forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matthew 6:12).  Forgiveness is key to the Christian life, it is the beginning of our own relationship with God as He forgave us, and that forgiveness and mercy should overflow to those around us. 

I know we have varying degrees of “enemies”.  Some of us can get offended by the slightest remark, others have grown up in abusive homes, others have been victims of assault or rape, there are many ways we can be sinned against and many ways we can respond to that sin.  Remember that when the Lord calls us to forgive, He is the Lord who hung on a cross, utterly rejected, beaten, cursed, naked, tortured, betrayed, reviled, mocked, laughed at.  Whatever you may have been through, whatever has been done to you, take heart that God understands your hurt, He hates what has been done to you, and He sees you not as broken or damaged goods, but as His beloved child that He would move heaven and earth to save.  Once we have that peace and healing with God Himself, we can extend that love to our enemies.

This is a command Jesus give us in Luke 6, “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.”  (Luke 6:27-28).  Notice that the first command here is to “love”.  The word Jesus uses here is “agapao” in Greek, which means “to love unconditionally and sacrificially as God Himself loves sinful men”.  It is a verb, it requires action. There are several different words used for love throughout the Bible, but this one is not an emotion, it is an action initiated by choice.  That’s important to know, because we do not have to “feel” like loving an enemy to obey Jesus in this way.  Next Jesus gives us 3 ways to demonstrate love to our enemies.  Do good, bless, and pray.  There are some enemies that we can do good for.  We can make dinner for the friend who said something hurtful to us.  We can get a gift for the teacher who is ornery and mean.  There are others we can bless.   We can speak well of that obnoxious neighbor when others are complaining about them.  We can be kind in response to our spouses when they are being unkind.  And there are others we pray for.  When you’ve been grievously sinned against, when it’s unsafe to put yourself with that person, you can pray.  You can pray for their salvation and repentance, you can pray for your own heart to heal and be able to forgive when it’s impossible without the help of God. 

Jesus made a way for us to find peace with our enemies, it isn’t easy, but it is possible as we walk with the Lord and follow His example.