Q. Loving our enemies is one of the toughest of demands that we are bid to do. Often we are total failures when we must love our enemies, those who have wronged us in some horrendous way, and often they are even the ones professing to be Christians. When we are to love our enemies, how are we to do it ? From a distance, or openly for all to see ?
A. I think the basic idea is to avoid repaying evil with evil, because that makes us just as bad. We are not to harbor resentment or anger either, because that’s a sin and does harm only to ourselves. (Eph 4:26-27) Personally I’ve found that asking the Lord to forgive the person who has harmed me is a good way to get rid of my resentment. How can I not forgive someone I’ve asked the Lord to forgive? Asking Him to forgive my anger as well, even when I think it’s justified, also helps. If I choose to pray for those things even though I don’t feel like it, pretty soon the Lord will align my feelings with my choices and I’ll have peace. This is called making faith choices, instead of responding to our feelings, and helps us fulfill the commandment to forgive one another as He has forgiven us (Matt 6:12).
There’s no need to publicly humiliate ourselves before our enemies. But if the opportunity arises to perform an act of kindness we should take it, knowing that we’re being obedient to the Lord. This makes pleasing Him our motive, and makes the other person’s reaction irrelevant. Remember, the goal is not to appease our enemy. It’s to demonstrate our love for the Lord.
