Love Your Enemies
David W Palmer
After all of his experience with, and fruit from, grace—which we looked at yesterday—did Paul ever explain how it works? Yes, thankfully he did; he said that grace works by faith alone … the kind of faith exhibited by Abraham:
(Romans 4:16 NKJV) Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.
(Romans 5:2 NKJV) through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
“It is of faith that it might be by grace” (KJV). Bearing in mind that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God, we will continue to study God’s word to both learn how to receive the faith to operate in God’s grace.
Now that we know we can obey Jesus’s list of very challenging instructions about practical love through the power of God’s amazing grace, we can go back to it—confident that by faith in his grace, we can obey all of his directives:
For our topic here of practicing love, let’s think of the first item in this list as a heading, and those that follow as the sub-points. Loving our enemies can practically be expressed by blessing them, doing good to them, and praying for them.
Does Jesus really expect us to obey these commands? To us, this looks impossible. So let’s begin by thinking about why he wants us to follow these instructions, and then we will think about how to do them.
First, we freshly renew our minds to the truth that our Lord said in the conclusion of his teaching in Matthew 5–7: those who obey him will be like the wise man who built his house on the rock; it was crash-proofed against all that the enemy could throw at it in the way of natural disasters (See: Mat. 7:24–27). The Holy Spirit added that obeying Jesus in his directives will be our protection in this life and on into eternity (See: Heb. 5:9).
Being God, Jesus knows how the whole system is designed and how it works. Being Love, he always and only ever chooses for us what is for our good. We would be well advised simply to obey him, even though we don’t fully understand why he instructs us to do these things or how the system works. In other words, we obey because we love and trust him who is our Shepherd:
(John 14:15 CEV) Jesus said to his disciples: “If you love me, you will do as I command.”
Second, we must realize that Jesus is our master and divine coach; he knows the stakes and how to win in life. Uppermost in his mind for us is the irrefutable and irresistible law of sowing and reaping. It controls everything God created … yes, absolutely everything! It was so prevalent in Jesus’s thinking during his whole teaching in Mat. 5–7 that he puts it into the conclusion as the reason for his teaching, and as the objective of the whole of the law and the prophets:
(Matthew 7:12 DKJV) “Therefore, in everything, whatever you want others to do to you, you do the same to them: for this is the objective of the law and the prophets.”
(Galatians 6:7 NKJV) “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.”
Every action we take will be multiplied back to us in our future, with great increase. That’s why Jesus continually tells us to sow only good things; because what we sow today is creating the atmosphere and conditions in which we will live tomorrow and on into eternity. So, when about to react or respond to any situation, ask yourself: “Is what I am about to say or do what I want multiplied back into my eternal future?”
This is when Jesus’s constraining instructions about loving our enemies begin to make sense. He is showing us the way to reap what we want. To reap love in the future, he says to sow love perfectly now … even to
