Love Your Enemies I

But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Matt. 5:43


This past week, the subject "Loving Enemies" has inadvertently entered my mind through an interesting detour. In thinking of a different subject, I was approached with the questions: “What does loving your enemy mean?” Continuing this thought, the question: “Who are my enemies”, came about. So I pondered these questions…

Before I continue, I want to talk about “greater” and “lesser.” Each term in my world determines a statistic or an amount of something. This something can be immaterial or material. However, many times in the immaterial I can deceive myself into thinking it can be measured. Take faith for instance. I do not believe my faith increases, but my revelation of what I have my faith in increases. Through difficult situations, my faith in God does not increase, but the revelation of my faith in other things such as myself, or my parents, is reduced considerably. My faith is refined, but is not increased. The love of God is the same thing. It does not increase or decrease with material actions, but is measured immaterially. It is measure infinitely. I am hesitant to use “greater” or “lesser” theologically, but in material actions and subjects, it is much easier to use.

Another term I would like to define is the opposite of enemy—a friend. A friend is one whom relates to you. One can accept one’s friend, warts and all. One can believe or trust in a friend, because they are trustworthy. One can confront or discipline a friend, because the love for each other is great. Friends are different than enemies because of love. And enemy could give you a drink, but if they are an enemy, there is no love and there is no trust. The drink could be poisoned. A friend’s drink is taken without hesitation (unless you live in a fraternity). It is the immaterial that makes the material different. A friend is someone that can be hurt, but the wound is viewed as discipline instead of an attack. A friend is a person who is interested in the life of a person, not the death of them. They are not cheerleaders who fill the air with flattery. They are teammates and teammates get angry with each other. They are not concerned with image, but identity and want the same for their friends. A friend, first and foremost, is a human at its greatest definition.

Who is my enemy? When I think of my enemies, no one or nothing comes to mind immediately. I am a nice guy and rarely get in fights. I do have the occasionally bought with the obnoxious Indiana University fans, the New England Patriot fans or the Ohio State fans. But none of these come close to the fans of Notre Dame. I literally hate Norte Dame. Moving away from the sports world, I seldom get upset or irate over any topic. It is hard to distinguish from true enemies or people I am angry with. For instance, drivers on the road who cannot, for the life of them, drive according to Dallas, Texas driving standards, anger me. Are they my enemy? No, because they are doing it out of ignorance, not motives (most of the time). An enemy would be one who attacks me intentionally. Reviewing the verse again, I cannot help but rank my enemies as well as my friends. Using the greater and lesser helps me evaluate the situation through justice. Enemies and friends are determined by material actions, thus using “greater” and “lesser” now comes into play…