When you’re right in the middle of an argument with a loved one, we all have a struggle with feeling, expressing, and showing love. We’re at an emotional high, and our logic escapes us. We react instead of properly responding.

And these are the people that are the closest to us and that we care the most about. And yet Jesus tells us to love our enemies. Knowing myself, that seems like an impossible task.

In order to fully understand what Jesus is asking of us, we must know the correct meaning and implications. I like to go back to old definitions because as we know, definitions change over time, especially as of late.

• In Hebrew, in which the old testament was written, the word enemy comes from the word Oyebh. It means “one who hates“.
• In the new testament, the Greek word often used is Echthros, which can be translated to enemy or opponent.

So an enemy can be someone who hates you or opposes you. But someone who opposes you may not hate you. Either way, according to scripture, we’re called to love them.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighborand hate your enemy.’But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so?Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.

Matthew 5:43-48

We’re told to personify the definition of love regardless of the person or the situation we’re in with them. While it may seem obvious to be loving, some people question, why is it so important to love our enemies? It’s one thing to walk away, or not to add to the conflict, but why love them?

First off, the bible tells us that our hearts are wicked. Our hearts deceive us.

Jeremiah 17:9 – The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

Mark 7:21 – For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,

It doesn’t take much to see and prove this. Just look at Nazi Germany and ask any German person a decade later why they helped the Nazis or did nothing and the most common answer was “We just thought we were doing the right thing“. That’s right, they thought gathering millions of innocent Jews and leading them to the gas chambers was the right thing to do. Their hearts were deceived and they did wicked things.

Let’s take a look at most of the evil people in history, and you’ll get the same exact answer. Some of the most atrocious things done in history were done by people who believed they were being good, and doing the right thing. Just look at what we’ve experienced from about 2020 onward. People who lined up to get the COVID Jab out of desperation and fear were literally telling those who didn’t want it that they should be shut out of society, and then it started to happen. Now in the last few weeks of this post, we have some of the LGBTQXYZ+ community calling to take arms and take out those who oppose their beliefs. We know who they mean to oppose. And this is from the “loving and accepting all” crowd.

So the question becomes, as Christians, do you or I really believe we’re any superior to these people? Are we any better than any other sinner? The correct answer is no.

Do we really think we wouldn’t make the same group mindset, and mob mentality mistakes? We all think we wouldn’t, but psychology and history prove to us that the majority of us will fall for it every time. Under the same conditions you and I are just as likely to be just as evil or do evil things. It is always the minority that holds onto the truth of what is good and protects it at all costs, regardless of the risk of losing one’s life. I don’t know if I’m that strong or loving, but I pray I am and that I would follow in the footsteps of the disciples and defend the truth at all costs.

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7

It’s only when we recognize what sin is, and how it can lead us to a great evil that we understand we have no hope and need a saviour. Read that last bit of scripture and tell me by that definition if much of the world we’ve come to know over the last 3 years is loving. And no, I’m not excluding myself from that list. I am guilty, but not ignorant.

Once we have accepted the reality that we’re all capable of really becoming evil, we are able to love others, regardless of their evil deeds. We truly understand the difference between people and their sins that lead them astray. This is truly a spiritual battle. And the only hope we have of saving people from this same path of sinful destruction and the road to hell is through the love of Jesus Christ. That’s not the same rainbow, hippy, carebear “all you need is love” that the world offers, but the biblical described love of Jesus Christ.

Now look at the last few years and see the commonalities that we saw in Nazi Germany.

• Group Identities
• Victimhood Ideology
• Tyrannical Leadership
• Division, hate, and anger are on the rise
• Stop at nothing to please our fleshly desires

While the world prepares to fight over its fleshly desires of the heart, Jesus says they’re all His children and that we need to love them. As He said before He died at the hand of the Roman Empire and a mob of people cheering for His death for doing nothing of real threat.

Luke 23:34 – Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.”

If we don’t love our enemies, we’re capable of being just as evil as they are and doing horrific things in the name of “justice”. If you listen, that’s what these groups are chanting for. Their perverted perception of Justice… whatever their sinful heart calls it.

It’s through Jesus Christ, and learning through His word that we know what true love looks like, how sin operates, and how we’re to respond in loving our enemies because they don’t know what they do.

Final note, Loving your enemy doesn’t mean opening yourself for their abuse. Of all the things biblical love is, it rejoices in the truth. You can expose the truth to your enemies in a loving way and protect yourself in the process. Being loving never means putting up with abuse.