How to Love Your Enemies: 7 Biblical Lessons From Jesus
How Can We Love Our Enemies?
Jesus gives one of the hardest teachings in the Bible: love your enemies.
Loving our enemies does not mean befriending bad people. It does not mean allowing people to abuse us, nor does it mean refusing to protect ourselves. Rather, Jesus teaches us how to respond to enemies without becoming like them.
Here are seven practical lessons from Luke 6 on how to love your enemies.
Pray for Your Enemies
The Bible teaches us to pray for our enemies.
In recent times, some preachers have taught that “pray for your enemies” does not mean you should pray for their prosperity. Some have taught that you can pray for their destruction as well. So, you would find Christians praying that their enemies should perish quickly.
But Jesus is the perfect example of godliness. He did not curse His enemies. He did not pray that they should perish. He did not pray that they should suffer from incurable diseases. Instead, He prayed, “Father, forgive them.”
We are to do good to our enemies. What is good? If your form of “good” is to pray that someone should perish or collapse, it is not Jesus’ form of “good.” Jesus taught that “good” is to treat others the same way you would love them to treat you. Do you want to perish? If not, why then would you pray that someone else should perish?
Not everyone who dislikes us or becomes jealous of us each day becomes our enemy. Humans are prone to instant negative tendencies like jealousy, hate, and envy. For the moment, you might count them as an enemy, but afterwards, they may change because their moment was hijacked by these negative tendencies.
For every negative tendency we see in people displayed toward us, the first thing to do is to pray for them and not immediately paint them as enemies.
Once, you were an enemy of God, but now you have changed. Once you figure out that someone hates you, pray. Once you figure out that jealousy is being directed at you, pray. Pray and watch.
If they persist in their negative attitudes toward you, then you can count them as enemies. Distance yourself from them, but continue to pray for them.
God believed you could change, and actually, you did. You need to believe that people can change and pray for them.
Bless Your Enemies
Luke 6:28: “Bless them that curse you.”
Go out there and be a blessing. Be a good blesser of people.
Many people are still lost in this world, and so were you. Jesus found you, blessed you, and adorned you with honor.
Many people are simply hurting. They have not seen the light, and that is already enough of a curse on them. There are thousands living in ignorance. They get upset over little things and want to curse you at the slightest provocation.
When they rage, bless them. When they step on your toes, bless them. When they overthrow your orange, still bless them. Buy them something. Desperately do good.
When they realize you are not desperately in wickedness as they are, they may begin to ask questions and want to be like you. That is the way we change our world.
Blessing them does not necessarily mean saying, “I bless you.” It means meeting their needs when you can. It means praying for them as well. Prayer offered on someone’s behalf is also a blessing.
It means quenching their thirst when you can. It means not turning your back on them when their house is on fire.
Also, to curse someone does not necessarily mean saying, “I curse you.” It can mean knocking down their fence and letting animals into it. It can mean seeing their animal struggling at the cliff and allowing it to die. It can mean hurting people and refusing to ask for forgiveness because of pride, tribe, or nationality.
When we willingly do bad against our neighbors, it is a form of curse.
The opposite of blessing is a curse. So, if you are not blessing people, you are moving in the opposite direction of blessing.
One must not open their mouth and say, “I curse you.” Their actions can speak for them. That is how you can recognize harmful relationships and keep your distance.
We had a neighbor who liked to say to a mother as a joke, “Useless, useless woman.” She did it as a joke and laughed. This mother would laugh together with her. Looking back, that kind of behavior could be a sign that something was wrong beneath the surface.
You need to know who your friends are.
The way you love friends and family is not the same way you relate to an enemy. If you do not distinguish between friends and enemies, you might turn a good friend into an enemy or an enemy into a friend without wisdom.
The Bible teaches us to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. Wisdom matters when dealing with difficult people.
Do Good to Them
The good here is not about what you think is good or what you feel is good. It is what is good.
People have many definitions of good today. For example, some people call same-sex marriage good, but it is not. What is good is not simply your personal idea of goodness; it is what it truly is. In other words, it is what God says it is.
Nature itself demonstrates that there are things that remain true regardless of how we feel about them. Human definitions of goodness may change, but God’s truth remains.
That is why the Bible says that heaven and earth will pass away, but God’s words will remain.
Go and do good, but do not allow people to prey on you. Do good to them when they are in need and when you are in a position to help. Maybe you stumble upon them and they are hungry; if you have food, you should feed them.
It does not mean going around looking for your enemies just to do good to them. It does not mean saying, “Where are my enemies? Come out here and get some food.”
Sometimes, some enemies can be really annoying. Staying away from them can be better, safer, and more peaceful.
There are some enemies you greet and they do not answer. If that continues again and again, you can leave it. You do not have to force a relationship with everyone. Doing good does not mean abandoning wisdom.
Do Not Retaliate
Luke 6:29
Jesus teaches that when someone strikes us on one cheek, we should turn the other also. That is a hard teaching to take in.
He really means that we should not retaliate. But that does not mean we do nothing. We can take the matter to God in prayer. We can also report the person to elders of the land or to the proper authorities. What we should avoid is taking the law into our own hands.
A lot of people, out of anger, have tried to take the law into their own hands and ended up in jail. Anger can make people do things they later regret, and violence can have serious consequences.
Not retaliating can also be a form of self-defense because it prevents a situation from escalating.
Jesus teaches us to think about different forms of defense. Should we keep quiet? Should we walk away and report later? Should we stay away? Should we seek help from someone in authority?
Most of the time, our enemies are not trying to take our lives immediately. Some despise us, throw insults, try to hinder our growth, steal from us, or spoil things we have built in one way or another.
We should not steal from them because they steal from us. We should not insult them because they insult us.
Unfortunately, you will sometimes find Christians exchanging insults with their enemies. The best way to handle an insult is often to walk away. Walking away is not always weakness. Sometimes, it is wisdom.
Love Yourself First
Many people do not know how to love themselves.
They deliberately cause harm to their lungs, brains, feet, and stomachs. The kinds of food some people put into their bodies make you wonder whether they truly love themselves.
Some people drink excessively or engage in habits that damage their bodies. People do not know how to love themselves; how can they now love their enemies?
You cannot give what you do not have.
Somebody grows for thirty years with himself and cannot love himself. Do you think that person will easily love “you” who has grown apart from him for twenty-five years?
That is one reason relationships can become difficult.
When you do not love yourself, you can become greedy. You see another person with a particular shoe and suddenly you need that shoe. You see someone online wearing certain clothes, and suddenly you need new clothes to become like that person.
It will always be centered around becoming something you saw or becoming like someone you saw. Because of that, you may never be satisfied.
Dissatisfaction can lead to greed.
Jesus gives us a simple principle:
“Do unto others what you would love them to do to you.”
Do you want someone to kill you? No.
So do not kill someone else.
Do you want someone to hurt you? No.
Then do not intentionally hurt someone else.
That is also self-love. Because you do not want someone to harm you, you choose not to harm another person.
Help Them Succeed
Luke 6:32
Some people, because someone is their enemy, do not want that enemy to succeed.
Some are even happy when their enemies are going through hard times.
But Jesus teaches us to avoid such behavior.
God allows the rain to fall on both the good and the evil. We should not hate our enemies so much that we begin to hate their children, their families, or even their possessions.
We should pray for the prosperity of our enemies. Pray for their peace. Pray for them to change. Pray that their work will prosper and that their crops will receive favorable weather.
The Bible warns against rejoicing when our enemies fall. If we laugh at the calamity of our enemies, we should be careful because God may turn the situation around.
We have to live above the standard of this world.
Loving only those who love you is the standard of this world.
Our goal is to be like God.
That is when we actually shine as light.
Anyone can love someone who loves them. The difficult part is showing goodness toward someone who does not love you.
That is where the teaching of Jesus becomes practical.
Lend, Expecting Nothing in Return
This is also one of the hard teachings to take in.
How can you lend to your enemies while expecting nothing in return?
We must apply wisdom when lending to either enemies or friends. Only lend money you can afford to let go. Do not lend all your savings and later starve with your children.
Many people are not always willing to repay you.
If it is a matter of life and death, you may choose to lend the money even if it is your last. But apart from genuine emergencies, many things can wait.
I remember that I had to wait for my elder sister to finish university. I went to university, and my younger sister had to wait. Today, we are all educated and doing fine.
No one should show up with a business urgency and make you take your last savings and give them everything.
Business can wait.
Travel can wait.
We can always travel another time.
People sometimes create unnecessary urgency to achieve their ambitions—sometimes selfish ambitions. Many things in life can wait.
When we walk with God, we will spend a lot of time waiting.
That is why many people do not love God’s ways. God often teaches us patience, but many people want everything now. They need money now. They need fame now. They need marriage now. They need success now.
Many people hate long-term goals. They want short-term results, and they want you to fund them.
If you are not careful, they can take advantage of you.
Always ask this question:
Can this wait?
What is this woman or man asking for? Can it wait?
Other people’s urgency should not automatically become your urgency if it does not concern saving someone’s life.
When someone’s life is genuinely at stake, the situation is different. But many people hide why they are borrowing money because they know that if you know the reason, you may become reluctant to give.
Some people borrow money to buy clothes for a wedding. Others borrow money to fund things that are important to them but are not necessarily emergencies.
Wisdom is needed when we are trying to love our enemies, and friends.
Conclusion: Loving Your Enemies Is a Higher Way of Living
Jesus’ teaching on loving our enemies is difficult, but it is also one of the clearest ways Christians can demonstrate the character of God.
To love your enemies means:
- Pray for your enemies.
- Bless your enemies.
- Do good to them.
- Do not retaliate.
- Love yourself first.
- Help them succeed.
- Lend, expecting nothing in return.
Loving your enemies does not mean being foolish, ignoring danger, or allowing people to continually harm you. It means refusing to repay evil with evil.
You can walk away.
You can set boundaries.
You can report wrongdoing.
You can protect yourself.
You can refuse to participate in revenge.
And you can still pray for the person.
The goal is not simply to have no enemies. The goal is to become the kind of person who can face hatred without becoming hateful.
Jesus calls us to live above the standard of the world.
Love those who love you, and you are doing what everyone does. But love your enemies, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you, and do good—and you begin to reflect the character of God.
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