Wow! That’s Hard

Jesus stood on a hillside and told a crowd of ordinary people to do an extremely hard thing, to love their enemies, bless those who curse them, and pray for those who persecute them. Not tolerate them. Not avoid them. Love them.

That's not a suggestion tucked into a longer speech. It's the thesis. Everything else in the sermon — turning the other cheek, going the extra mile, giving without expecting return — flows from that one difficult command.

It is so difficult that we gloss over it and focus on other things we can do that are much easier. We can avoid certain drinks or foods. We can avoid certain businesses. We can dress a certain way. We can pray a lot. Give a lot. Sing a lot. Preach a lot. I think we've exalted the small things in order to ignore the main thing. It's just too hard to do.

Here's what makes it so difficult. Love in the biblical sense isn't a feeling you manufacture. It's agape —  seeking someone's good even when your instinct screams otherwise. You can't conjure it by trying harder. It only shows up when something bigger than your hurt is moving you.

Jesus didn't just preach it. He lived it from the cross. "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." The people nailing his hands to wood were his enemies in the most literal sense, and his first public word from that position was mercy.

We see Jesus praying for them. I have noticed that prayer for an enemy blesses me and rewires me before it ever changes them. It helps me to see them as God sees them: not a threat, not a project, but a person God loves and is still working in.

The mission feels impossible because it is — on human terms. That's the point. Jesus never asked us to accomplish it alone. God in us is the One producing agape love in people who otherwise would have too much pain and hate.

So the question isn't whether we can love our enemies. It's whether we are letting Someone greater than our own pain show us the new and living way.

His Love is so beautiful and liberating. What a kingdom this is!