Love Your Neighbors Even If They Are Your Enemies

"Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the Lord." (Lev 19:18 KJV)

"Master, which is the great commandment in the law?

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."                    

                                                                                       (Matt 22:36-40)

What does it mean to love your neighbor as yourself? How about don't be doing to others what you would not want done to yourself! 

Vengeance is not ours. It is not ours to take the law into our own hands. We are sinners and way too often judge by our feelings and not the facts. Would we want to be judged, persecuted, and even killed because someone has a bad feeling about us based on their own bias'? 

That is exactly what happened to Jesus. The people demanded that he be executed based on the false witnesses and their personal reasons for demanding his death. The people were incited to the point of near rioting so Pilate gave him over to death to avoid more trouble. The innocent one was put to death. The guilty Barrabas was set free based on feelings and not fact. 

Jesus was not loved by everyone. He is not. We are not loved by everyone even though the command of God is to love others even as we would love ourselves. The command to love our neighbors includes even those we might consider our enemies. Yet, we do not. 

Jesus said: 

"Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? (Matt 5:43-46)

Being that we are sinful human beings loving our enemies can be tough. So, if we really can't act in love toward others then the loving thing to do might be to walk away from them instead of causing harm to them. Let them live life without the turmoil that we would cause them. Would we not desire that if someone hated us that they walk away from us rather than attempt to exact their own idea of vengeance or justice upon us?

"Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them..." 

God's Peace - Pr. J.