How to Love Your Enemies

A Hard but Good Road

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Jesus is urging you to love your enemies. The rationale? You're different. You're different from the world. One reason it matters is that you’ve got a great reward coming. The other is that we have a Father to imitate and show to the world – He's merciful, so we ought to be merciful. Question: how do we do that?

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How do we walk on this path of freedom? (Why call it a path of freedom? I believe that when Christ actually invites us on a path like this, it is for our own good. Think about that. He's actually commanding something that's for your good, even though you don't want to do it. He's inviting you to the pathway of discipleship for reasons that will benefit you in the long run, as well as bring glory to the Father.) Verse 6:37-38 give us the answer, it is a pathway of freedom.

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I picture it like this: You are fuming mad about something that happened, anger, bitterness, resentment, rage, malice, everything within you says, towards that person or perceived injustice, “I hope they rot in hell.” That's the emotion. In response to this Christ offers this road map to freedom. It is marked with three signposts that say, “okay, here's the steps in the process. You want to live a life of freedom? You want to live a life that is that is unrestrained by the bitterness and the resentment within your heart? Well, here's the path.” 

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Signpost #1: A Midset to Change

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Signpost number one: you have a mindset to change. It all starts in your mind; It starts with the way that you view that enemy; It's a change of mindset. Take a look at Verse 37, “judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven…”

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“When you gain the mindset that that person owes me, that person must pay me, that person must return to me, you sit in a place of judgment and condemnation over that person and, my friend, that will only lead to a life of bondage.”

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The mindset when you have injustice happen to you says that an unfairness or an injustice has been committed against me. Therefore, I have the right to sit as judge over them. When you gain the mindset that that person owes me, that person must pay me, that person must return to me, you sit in a place of judgment and condemnation over that person and, my friend, that will only lead to a life of bondage. You have to change the mindset and the mindset change is this: There is one judge and I am not him. The new midset takes very seriously these words: Judge not, lest you be judge, condemn not, lest, you be condemned.

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It frees us to walk on the path of freedom because we all of a sudden are at a place in life where we relinquish the control of payback and we allow God to have the vengeance. What does the Scripture say? Old Testament and New Testament; “do not repay evil for evil, for vengeance is mine, says the Lord. I will repay.”

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Side thought: Do you really think that God will repay better than you? Because He does. God has the ability to repay far better than we ever could. So we take the seriously and we change our mindset. I am no longer the judge; I am stepping back; I relinquish that role to the Lord Jesus, who alone is the judge of the living and the dead.

We have a mindset change and now we move along the road from hostility to least neutrality, and then eventually we move to the act of generosity. But hold on for a moment, right now we're at the moment of how do you move from hostility to at least neutrality. It begins with a change of mindset. 

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Around you are people who have various degrees of injustice, and hut, and pain. And the first step on the roadmap of freedom, the mindset to change to is: you have to let God deal with them, and that will move you from hostility to neutrality. 

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Signpost #2: A Debt to Release

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Here’s the warning: it gets harder as you go. It gets harder. Continuereading; “Forgive and you will be forgiven.” The way of Jesus is not always easy. You want to walk in the road of freedom, you’ve experienced injustice? Step one: You have a mindset to change. Step two: you have a debt to release – forgiveness. Think about this for a moment.

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We love to hold on to that bitterness and resentment and all of a sudden, the injustice – the person, which should never have controlled our past begins to control our future as well. And Jesus calls us to this radical act of forgiveness. But, what is it not?

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Well, forgiveness is not pretending like it didn't happen. Forgiveness is not as  if to sweep it under the rug and say, “It doesn't really matter.” No, an injustice has been done, a wrong has been committed, and forgiveness doesn't just pretend like, everything's going to be okay. Forgiveness actually simply releases that debt between you and the Lord and from, and it releases that person from the repayment of that debt they owe you. Essentially you are saying, “I am no longer going to live in a position as if I am the judge or the condemning factor of that person.” You say, I'm going to change my mindset. God, you are the judge. Now I'm going to walk in the pathway of freedom – I'm going to walk in forgiveness – I'm going to release that debt to the Lord, trusting that he is the one who will be the one to repay, not me. Why this is so critical, my friend, is because, depending on what was taken from you, depending on what level of injustice, that very thing in life may never be able to be repaid back to you. In fact, some of you have enemies who are not even alive anymore, right? There's no ability for them to repay. 

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Signpost #3: Grace to Extend

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It gets harder. He wants us to move from hostility to neutrality, but then to an act of generosity. Notice what’s next, “give and it shall be given to you.” The context is how you respond to injustice.

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How do we respond? Judge not: change your mindset. Forgive: release the debt. Step three: What!? Do good to them!? Yeah. Notice the reward that comes with it though. Give, do good and give and it shall be given to you, and how much will the Lord indeed bless you for obeying Him in this? Take a look at it. It says, “good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with a measure you use it will be measured back to you.” It's a word picture, it's imagery. This is how many fries I want in the fast food bag, man! I mean, I want that thing like, pressed down, shaken, settled, overflowing. This is how much bacon I want on my burger! This is how much lobster I want in the lobster bisque, man!

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This is what Chris is saying!  When you walk the pathway of freedom, you change the mindset, you release the debt, and then you move into this act of generosity where you actually do good to those that you would rather punch in the face. Christ says, Listen, my eyes are on you. Your reward will be great and I will pour upon you blessing upon blessing, upon blessing. The Lord has a way to reward His faithful people!

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One Step at a Time

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Actions step: Take one step. Take a step with an enemy that will move you from open hostility to neutrality to act of generosity.

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I don't know where you're at in the process, I don't need to know all the details, but this call to discipleship is a call to do something. It is a call, wherever you are at in the process, to move along the pathway of freedom. What we recognize is this: when injustice comes knocking, Christ urges a response. The response? Love your enemies. The rationale? You're different. The reason it matters? We have a father to imitate in this world. How do I do that? You do it one step at a time.

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