Love for Enemies
43 "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 44 But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Jesus said that we have heard to love your neighbor and hate your enemy...But He tells us more: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you...When we do this we may be sons of our Father in heaven....God causes His sun to rise on both the evil and the good, and sends rain on both the righteous and the unrighteous...If you love only those who love you, what reward will you get?...Are not even the tax collectors doing that?...And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others?...Do not even pagans do that?...
So Jesus teaches us to love our enemies, because it is easy just to love our family and friends...But to have love for our enemy, now that is a much different story...The one who does not like you, mocks you, and even threatens you now that is a different story of love and is really what love is about...This kind of loving feeling is the one that can be said that is the kind of love that does conquer all...
Pastor Frederick Buechner wrote this about loving different people in one's life...“The love for equals is a human thing--of friend for friend, brother for brother...It is to love what is loving and lovely...The world smiles...The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing--the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor, the sick, the failures, the unlovely...This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world...The love for the more fortunate is a rare thing--to love those who succeed where we fail, to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice, the love of the poor for the rich, of the black man for the white man...The world is always bewildered by its saints...And then there is the love for the enemy--love for the one who does not love you but mocks, threatens, and inflicts pain...The tortured's love for the torturer...This is God's love...It conquers the world.”...