Week 7: Hate vs. Love
How do you truly “love your enemies” and “pray for those who persecute you”? How do YOU choose between hate and love?
How do you truly “love your enemies” and “pray for those who persecute you”? How do YOU choose between hate and love?
Mackenzie said,
10/12/2009 at 10:35 am
Instead of taking revenge on those who hate you, take pity on them. I feel sorry for those who are unkind to me, they obviously aren’t very inviting or open to difference. If anyone has something against you, they don’t know how to forgive. Be kind to them and maybe they’ll realize you are not worth being an enemy to.
Dan Grenier said,
10/21/2009 at 3:27 am
I have not had many enemies in my life. In fact I think I can only remember 1 person that was ever a bully to me and I really can’t think of anyone beyond that that I didn’t like being around for a reason other than that they were annoying. The reason for this is because I am a very peace loving person. I hate conflict and I love just being friendly. Even people who turn out to be rivals, or don’t necessarily share my beliefs, or whatever the reason is that they could possibly be my enemie, I’m normally able to put that difference out of my mind when I’m around them and love on them anyways. When I’ve done this I’ve found that people who didn’t exactly get along with me initially quickly warmed up to me and we’ve turned out to be at least decent friends, sometimes it even helps us share our differences in a better mood and we learn from eachother and grow through that. However I’ve recently realized that the reason I don’t have enemies is that I sometimes compromise. Sometimes I’ll agree with someone I don’t agree with or I’ll ignore a certain fundamental difference in the name of peace. Because of this attitude I know that I have thrown away countless opportunities to minister to people who were definately in the wrong. I believe peace and love are extremely important but that having enemies is a sign that your a Christian. Jesus had numerous enemies. pharasees, saducees, his own home town, he was constantly being attacked and harrased for what he taught. I am obviously not the best candidate to answer your question because it’s difficult to pray and love on your enemies when you have none however I believe looking at the life of Jesus once again can help answer this problem. Jesus spoke truth, he didn’t compromise, if someone disagreed, whether they voiced it or not, Jesus set them straight. He had dinner with people in the low rungs of society, tax collecters (who were everyones enemies) and he even had 1 written account where he privately met with a pharasee (Nicodemus) to talk about some of the tougher portions of Jesus’ teaching. Jesus went out their confronted people, taught people, converted people, and those who he didn’t convert, those who hated him, he shook the dust off his sandals and left them for a future missionary to try and convert. (sorry for the spelling errors, and the grammar errors, and everything else).