What Does It Mean To Love Your Enemies?
One of the most important meanings of loving someone else is to desire the best for them. Desiring the best for somebody isn’t always to desire that everything be comfortable and easy in their life, because sometimes we need challenges. Especially if a person is far from God, they may need to be confronted with some challenges in their life in order to really turn their heart to the Lord with repentance.
A very practical way to love your enemies is to look for ways to do good things for them. What kind of things? The number one thing you can do is pray for them. Pray that their heart is changed and turned towards the Lord so that they’re no longer your enemy. You might wonder, “But what if my enemy is someone who already claims to be a believer?” Then you should really pray for them, and pray for yourself as well, that God would help you both to come to a mutual understanding and reconciliation. Pray for God’s blessing in their life, understanding that the greatest blessing in anyone’s life is to come to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, if they’re separated from Him. So, loving your enemies means praying for good and blessing in their lives.
Prayer on behalf of another person is a wonderful way to demonstrate love. You might also be able to demonstrate love towards them in practical ways. If you live in a place where it snows, and your enemy is your neighbor, you could shovel their sidewalk. Why would you do that for them? Because Jesus commands us to love and to love with our actions. Loving someone doesn’t mean pretending that they’re not your enemy. It doesn’t mean pretending that there’s really no difficulty or strife or conflict between you. Instead, it’s desiring God’s best in their life, praying for God’s best in their life, and looking for opportunities to do good to them in the best way that you can. It’s not trying to create within ourselves a feeling of love for our enemy; don’t waste your time on that. If the feeling is there, wonderful. But if the feeling isn’t there, don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about how you feel towards your enemy. Ask God, “How can I demonstrate my love towards them?” And then go ahead and do it.