Love your enemies
The Father's likeness
Jesus issues the command that may be the highest and hardest in all his teaching: love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who persecute you. Anyone can love those who love them back; even the worst people manage that. But to love those who hate and harm us — to actively seek their good and pray for their blessing — is something only the grace of God can produce.
This is the pinnacle of the character God forms in us, the place where Christlikeness is most unmistakable and most impossible to fake. Loving enemies cannot be manufactured by willpower or performed for an audience; it can only flow from a heart genuinely transformed, a heart in which Christ's own love for his enemies — for us, while we were his enemies — has taken root.
And Jesus names what such love makes us: that you may be children of your Father in heaven, who makes his sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust. God's love is indiscriminate, poured out even on those who hate him. To love our enemies is to act like our Father, to bear the family likeness most clearly. This is where formation is heading — to a love so like God's that it reaches even those who do not deserve it. Whom do you find hardest to love, and could you begin, today, to pray for their good?
“Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who persecute you.”
— Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount — Matthew 5:44 (WEB)
Love your enemies — blessing and praying for those who hate you — the pinnacle of Christlikeness that only grace can produce and that bears the Father's likeness most clearly.
“That you may be children of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.”
We can love those who love us back, which proves little, and so mistake ordinary affection for Christlike love. The interior work is to reach for the love only grace can produce — love of enemies, which cannot be faked or willed but flows from a heart transformed by Christ's love for us while we were his enemies — recognizing it as the place Christlikeness is most unmistakable and where we bear the Father's indiscriminate-loving likeness most clearly.
This week, take the person hardest for you to love and obey Jesus' command toward them: begin to pray genuinely for their good, look for a way to do good to them, and bless rather than curse, letting Christ's love for his enemies take root in you.
The flesh is content to love the people who love it back and call that Christian, all while nursing a private grudge against the ones who wounded it. But love of enemies cannot be manufactured or faked — it can only spill from a heart Christ has already remade — and where it appears, blessing those who curse and praying for those who persecute, it bears the Father's likeness so plainly that the old cycle of hatred finally has nowhere to turn.
Loving those who love us is easy; even the hardest people manage it. Jesus calls us to something only grace can produce: love your enemies, bless those who curse you, pray for those who persecute you. This is the pinnacle of Christlike character and the place it is most impossible to fake — for love of enemies cannot be manufactured by willpower or performed for an audience. It can only flow from a heart genuinely transformed by the love of Christ, who loved us while we were his enemies.
And Jesus tells us what such love reveals: that you may be children of your Father, who sends sun and rain on the evil and the good alike. God's love is indiscriminate, poured even on those who hate him, and to love our enemies is to bear his family likeness most clearly. This is where all formation is finally heading — toward a love so like God's that it reaches even the undeserving. Bring to mind the person hardest for you to love, and take the first step Jesus names: begin, today, to pray for their good.
- Do I mistake loving those who love me for Christlike love?
- Whom do I find hardest to love?
- Could I begin today to pray for the good of an enemy?
Lord, I love those who love me and call it Christian love, while resenting those who wrong me. You command me to love my enemies, as you loved me while I was yours. Transform my heart, and let me bless, do good to, and pray for those hardest to love, bearing my Father's likeness. Amen.