Loving Your Enemies: The Impossible Mission

Jesus told us to love our enemies. Not tolerate them. Not avoid them. Love them.

And if you're honest, that sounds impossible. Your enemy isn't a stranger — they're the person who betrayed you, the one who lied about you, the one who hurt someone you love. Loving them feels like betraying yourself.

But here's the thing: Jesus never asked us to feel warm fuzzies toward people who wronged us. He asked us to want their good. That's a choice, not a feeling. And choices can be made even when feelings lag behind.

It becomes possible when we stop trying to do it alone. We pray for them — even just "God, bless them" — and something shifts. Not in them. In us. We start seeing them as a person God loves, not just as what they did to us.

Loving your enemies doesn't mean letting them hurt you again. It means refusing to let their evil define your heart.

Jesus said, "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" — and then he did it. From the cross: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

The Greek word is agape — not affection, not sentiment, but deliberate goodwill. Wanting someone's good even when they want yours destroyed. That's not a feeling. It's a posture of the will.

Paul calls it the "foolishness of God" — and he's right. By every human measure, loving your enemy is irrational. It looks like weakness. It looks like surrender. But the cross is where God redefined power: not the power to destroy, but the power to absorb evil without being consumed by it.

Augustine said the enemy is the one who makes it possible for you to practice love. Without an enemy, agape stays theoretical. With one, it becomes real — and costly.

It becomes possible when we remember that "While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." We didn't earn that love. We received it. And receiving it is what makes giving it possible.

Loving your enemy isn't about them. It's about becoming the kind of person the cross makes you.

Who is the person you find hardest to love — and what would it look like to pray for their good this week, even once?