LOVE-ENEMIES FOR

The ultimate weapon to use against those who do evil is to love them; to meet their needs.

Lou Priolo

The Complete Husband, Calvary Press, www.calvarypress.com, 1999, p. 134.

Earnest intercession will be sure to bring love with it. I do not believe you can hate a man for whom you habitually pray. If you dislike any brother Christian, pray for him doubly, not only for his sake, but for your own, that you may be cured of prejudice and saved from all unkind feeling.

C.H. Spurgeon

God may define some people as enemies, but He says that we are to treat them as friends. Our duty is to consider how to serve them in such a way that they would be pointed to Jesus and repent from their sins… How can we even begin this impossible process?… Do we realize that we were Christ’s enemies? If we do, then we have no choice but to treat enemies the way God has treated us. Our conscience would rebel if we felt smug in a self-righteous judgment of our enemies.

Edward T. Welch

When People are Big and God is Small, P&R Publishing, 1997, p. 188. Used by Permission.

On the surface, love for enemies sounds like self-punishment or foolishness. It goes in the face of popular counsel that tells you to jettison people who damage your self-esteem. But if God says it, it must be good. There is always a blessing in obedience. The blessing might not be reconciliation or repentance by the enemy. Instead, it may be the privilege of not being controlled by that enemy. Or it might simply be the joy of becoming more like Jesus. Whatever it may be, there is always a blessing in obedience.

Edward T. Welch

When People are Big and God is Small, P&R Publishing, 1997, p. 190. Used by Permission.

Who are other people? They take on three different shapes: Enemies, neighbors, and family. What is our duty to them? Love. Love may take a different form with each group, but our duty is summed up as love. We love enemies by surprising them with our service toward them. We love neighbors by treating them like our family. And we love the body of Christ – our true brothers and sisters – in such a way that the world and spiritual powers are stunned by our oneness.

Edward T. Welch

When People are Big and God is Small, P&R Publishing, 1997, p. 211. Used by Permission.

As the Lord says, He makes the sun to shine and the rain to fall on the unjust and the wicked as well as on the godly. And His followers are required to act accordingly. Christ commands us to love our enemies, and uses as His model the fact that God from heaven showers His blessings on the wicked. We see that God actually hates and is infinitely angry with persons upon whom He pours great blessings. We are not allowed to hate persons, but are commanded to love them. We cannot, of course, be pleased with persons who hate God and hate us, but we can behave lovingly toward them and pray for them. In so doing, we follow the model of God.

John Gerstner

The Problem of Pleasure, Soli Deo Gloria, 2002, p. 17.

The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people.

G.K. Chesterton

Can we pray for justice, and yet love our enemy at the same time? The answer is yes…We will magnify the mercy of God by praying for our enemies to be saved and reconciled to God. At the personal level we will be willing to suffer for their everlasting good, and we will give them food and drink. We will put away malicious hatred and private vengeance. But at the public level we will also magnify the justice of God by praying and working for justice to be done on earth, if necessary through wise and measured force from God-ordained authority.

John Piper

World Magazine, September 22, 2001.

Our Lord God must be a pious man to be able to love rascals. I can't do it, and yet I am a rascal myself.

Martin Luther

The Early Years, Christian History, n. 34.

The best way to destroy an enemy is to turn him into a friend.

F.F. Bruce

Taken from " Hard Sayings of Jesus " by, F.F. Bruce, page 73. (c)1973 InterVarsity Christian Fellowship of the USA, Revised edition. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press, P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515. www.ivpress.com.

(God) bestows His blessings without discrimination. The followers of Jesus are children of God, and they should manifest the family likeness by doing good to all, even to those who deserve the opposite.

F.F. Bruce

Taken from " Hard Sayings of Jesus " by, F.F. Bruce, page 75. (c)1973 InterVarsity Christian Fellowship of the USA, Revised edition. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press, P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515. www.ivpress.com.

Persistence in prayer for someone whom we don’t like (Lk. 6:28), however much it goes against the grain to begin with, brings about a remarkable change in attitude.

F.F. Bruce

In loving his friends a man may in a certain sense be loving only himself – a kind of expanded selfishness.

John Broadus
Matthew, Judson Press, 1886, p. 123.

It is impossible to pray for someone without loving him, and impossible to go on praying for him without discovering that our love for him grows and matures.

John Stott
The Message of the Sermon on the Mount, IVP, 1978, p. 119.

[Jesus Christ’s] victory, of course, does not mean that we rush off to kill all our enemies. It means instead that we are to love them. Our love for them must be strong enough, however, to tell them with both passion and compassion, that their hopes are in vain, that their gods are mute and dumb, and that there is only one name under heaven by which a man must be saved. Our love for them does not present the Christian Gospel as an option. It does not lead us to argue that it’s a good option that has worked well for us. Our love instead commands all men everywhere to repent and believe the Gospel, lest they perish. Our love calls on all our enemies to kiss the Son, lest He be angry and they perish along the way (Ps. 2:12).

R.C. Sproul Jr.

Kiss the Son, Tabletalk, June 2008, p. 81, Used by Permission.

Love’s question is never who to love – because we are to love everyone – but only how to love most helpfully. We are not to love merely in terms of feeling but in terms of service. God's love embraces the entire world (John 3:16), and He loved each of us even while we were still sinners and His enemies (Rom. 5:8-10). Those who refuse to trust in God are His enemies; be He is not theirs. In the same way, we are not to be enemies of those who may be enemies to us. From their perspective, we are their enemies; but from our perspective, they should be our neighbors.

John MacArthur
Matthew 1-7, Moody, 1985, p. 346.

Assuredly there is but one way in which to achieve what is not merely difficult but utterly against human nature: to love those who hate us, to repay their evil deeds with benefits, to return blessings for reproaches. It is that we remember not to consider men's evil intention but to look upon the image of God in them, which cancels and effaces their transgressions, and with its beauty and dignity allures us to love and embrace them.

John Calvin

Your ability to really love your enemies…to do good even to the ungrateful or wicked absolutely requires the intervention of the Godhead. It required that Christ suffer and die because of your natural enmity to God. It requires the Holy Spirit’s power to give you a wholly new life. It requires the Father’s patient hand to prune and grow you in a way of life that is otherwise impossible – even inconceivable. It requires nothing less than radical repentance, living faith, and renewal of your whole heart that you might begin to learn how to really love. Such faith working through love is the product of a good news worth living and dying for.

David Powlison

Seeing With New Eyes, P&R Publishers, 2003, p. 235.

Take unilateral initiative, and don’t quit. Love your enemies. Unreciprocated love expresses the image of your Father.

David Powlison

Seeing With New Eyes, P&R Publishers, 2003, p. 238.

All of us would be wiser if we would resolve never to put people down, except on our prayer lists.

D.A. Carson

A Call to Spiritual Reformation, Baker, 1992, p. 29.