Love Will Conquer All. How Or Why Should We Love Our Enemies?

We all get angry.

It all sounds so simple, yet, it is a sorry fact of life, (with everyone having freedom to exert their own free will), that it can be so difficult at times for even us Christians to contain our anger … it’s so difficult to let things go … and it’s so difficult to remain calm when all hell breaks around us … but that is life … and that is what Jesus was trying to teach the disciples … to not let our emotions of fear get the better of us, because these are emotion of destruction, and destruction does not, and never will, bring harmony to anyone as we know.

Why love our enemies?

Jesus was saying that hated and plotting revenge to our enemies will cause damaged to ourselves, (as well as to our enemies), … and did Jesus qualify this … YES, HE DID. Jesus said that no matter what you someone does to you, whether or not you see the connection between them and yourself, forgive and “do not judge”, meaning to not react, and carry out what you should think the sentence or execution should be.

The NIV puts it this way in Matthew 7 verse 1, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. … (as we know, but goes on to say). … For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and … with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you”.

So clearly there is a connection between how we judge a person’s actions, and how we ourselves are judged. … It’s like a mirror, it’s the mirror of life which uses the measure we judge others, and reflects that measure back to us, … and judge us by … our own judgement against others, and in many cases we are judged more harshly. Hey, we are playing with fire here.

Put it in a another way, if we are showing anger and hatred and fear towards someone, guess what, that is what we will receive in return. It may not be within the next few minutes, hours days, even weeks, but because of that mirror of life, we will receive what we give. … If we lash out with anger and hatred, guess what, we will receive anger and hatred in return … from somewhere. The modern term, is the old word KARMA.

I hope this isn’t going to be my last sermon, but Jesus is telling us this morning the opposite, to radiate love instead of hatred and revenge, because sending out signals and feelings and emotions of love instead, (especially when things go wrong), will be mirrored back to us … somehow … but in terms of blessings.

Love the things our enemies do;

Now I am not saying for one second to love the things our enemies do; I am not saying that, NO, NO WAY, but what I am saying it is how we react to what is done to us … matters. We can either retaliate or build up a resentment within ourselves and nurse it until it overpowers us … or even better … we could master the situation, by letting our love flow, or at least, let our love from within shine on the problem … because love does, and will conquer all, () or all fear.

The more anger and hatred and evil we radiate, the worse we will receive in return, because that is what our minds are tuned into, and conversely, the more love we radiate, the more love we will receive, or attract to ourselves. The more bitterness we develop, (even though it may make us feel better at the time), will only results in us sliding on that downward spiral, attracting more of the same. BY the way, the term “bitter and twisted” was derived from this downward spiral.