What if you can't love your enemies?

[nightflight]

To love those who hate you and to whom you hate back; who can do this? I could never be a Christian; I'm too hateful.

 

[Hakan101]

What greater way is there to love your enemy than to share the Gospel with him, in the hopes that his very soul might be saved? That he may turn from an enemy into a fellow soldier in Christ?

Do you really hate someone so much that you would desire to see them suffer for eternity?

 

[Emmy]

Dear nightflight. God is Love, and God wants loving sons and daughters. I say this with love, the day will surly come when you have to face eternity. In Matthew 22: 35-40: Jesus our Saviour tells us: " The first and great Commandment is: Love God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. The second is like it: love thy neighbour as thyself." ( neighbour is all you know and all you meet, friends and not friends) Love God above all else,
and love/treat your neighbour as you would love to be treated. In the prayer which Jesus taught us, we are told:
" Forgive us our sins as we will forgive those who sin against us." If you will not forgive the man or woman who sins against you, neither will God forgive you your sins. You will face eternity without God, and only because you will not forgive. Think about that carefully, dear brother. Greetings from Emmy, sister in Christ.

 

[com7fy8]

So, you understand the true Christianity is about loving. This is good, that you understand this. We invest in loving. We confess to God, that we do not know how to love. Loving is not only what we show, we need how He changes all of us so we love. You are not alone; you need to do what every one of us needs to do.

 

[Tigger45]

To love those who hate you and to whom you hate back; who can do this? I could never be a Christian; I'm too hateful.

For me as a Christian forgiveness is the goal of which I'm constantly trying to achieve. Sometimes I achieve full forgiveness for those that have offended me and other times I don't but when I don't I keep getting back down on my knees and ask God for His assistance.

 

[paul1149]

To love those who hate you and to whom you hate back; who can do this? I could never be a Christian; I'm too hateful.

Sounds like you're a perfect candidate for Christ. He came not for the well, but for the sick.

But when he heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. -Mt 9.12 ​

And everyone is sick:

we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. -Rom 3:9-11 ​

There are two kinds of people - those who think they are ok, and those who are honest with themselves. Guess which ones have more of a chance with God?

He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt:
“Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’
But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’
I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” -Luke 18:9-14 ​

Not only does no one deserve the mercy of God, no one can work out the Christian life in his own strength either. So what then can be done about the problem of being hateful?

We love because he first loved us. -1 John 4:19 ​

When you realize the incredible price Christ paid so that you might have life, and the love that drove Him, your heart will be changed. You will invite Jesus in and give your life to Him. And He will begin renovations. Not window dressing, but deep foundational and structural work.

The changed heart is the greatest miracle of all, because it is the most impossible of all in the natural. Only God can do it. But He indeed can, and will, for "whosover will" (John 3:16).

 

[Messy]

To love those who hate you and to whom you hate back; who can do this? I could never be a Christian; I'm too hateful.

Noone can, only He can do that through you. I even hated my friends before I accepted Jesus in my life. That was the first thing that changed.

 

[grasping the after wind]

To love those who hate you and to whom you hate back; who can do this? I could never be a Christian; I'm too hateful.

No one can possibly love those they hate that is a contradiction and not the goal Jesus set for his followers. He did not say to love those you hate he said to love even those that hate you. He doesn't give us permission to hate anyone at all, ever, under any circumstances. Like all the goals he set for us we are not up to the task. Love God with all your heart and mind and soul. Who can do this? No one. Love your neighbor as you love yourself? Who can do this? No one. There are varying degrees of how close we come to those goals but no one ever reaches them. Yet there are people all over the world that claim to be Christian. Are they all, me included btw, liars. Perhaps we are liars( who has gone through a lifetime only telling the truth?) but not necessarily when we claim to be Christians. The standards that Jesus set are unattainable by us. He knew that and we know that. The thing is that he also told us about forgiveness and that even though we will inevitably fall short of those standards God will love us anyway because God, unlike us, is actually capable of that kind of love that we are incapable of. To be a Christian does not mean we are, or ever expect to attain, perfection ourselves. It forces us to admit the correctness of the standard that Jesus set, our total inability to live up to it and our helplessness to do anything but beg for forgiveness and ask for Christ's intervention on our behalf.

 

[FutureAndAHope]

Hi,

When I was a kid, we would jump fences on the farms near where we lived. You would never just try to jump as high as the fence you would always jump as hard as you could so you knew you would clear it. The same is true of this scripture, it may seem like an impossible thing to do, "Loving your enemies", but if you try to jump that high you may just clear the fences you have in life. The difficult situation, the difficult people. The bible says "As much as depends upon you live a peace with all men", this guides us to try to find the best in situation, and bring restoration in relationships, and conflicts. If we were allowed to have enemies the world would be a mess.

 

[FutureAndAHope]

Grasping after the wind - the statement you made is not in my opinion 100% true, you said "The standards that Jesus set are unattainable by us", to a degree that is truth, we can never be fully 100% loving. But his commands are definitely attainable, not that we will ever be sinless, but every command is simple enough to obey. Jesus says "Don't steal" - we can obey this, Jesus says "Don't commit adultery" - we can obey this, Jesus says "Love your neighbor as you love your self" - we can do this, Jesus says "Love your enemies" - we can do this. Sure we may fail from time to time to do each command perfectly, but to say we can't keep God laws is not true. We need to aim higher, we can't say "It is impossible to keep God's laws", otherwise a person may not even try.

 

[nightflight]

Are there no more private messages on this site?

 

[paul1149]

It's now called "start a conversation".

 

[nightflight]

It's now called "start a conversation".

Is it the same as a private message?

 

[Winken]

Not only does no one deserve the mercy of God, no one can work out the Christian life in his own strength either. So what then can be done about the problem of being hateful?

We love because he first loved us. -1 John 4:19 ​

When you realize the incredible price Christ paid so that you might have life, and the love that drove Him, your heart will be changed. You will invite Jesus in and give your life to Him. And He will begin renovations. Not window dressing, but deep foundational and structural work.

The changed heart is the greatest miracle of all, because it is the most impossible of all in the natural. Only God can do it. But He indeed can, and will, for "whosover will" (John 3:16).

Amen and Amen. And again, Amen and Amen.

 

[Winken]

Is it the same as a private message?

Yes.

 

[nightflight]

Yes.

thanks.

 

[oi_antz]

To love those who hate you and to whom you hate back; who can do this? I could never be a Christian; I'm too hateful.

Why do you hate people?

 

[grasping the after wind]

Grasping after the wind - the statement you made is not in my opinion 100% true, you said "The standards that Jesus set are unattainable by us", to a degree that is truth, we can never be fully 100% loving. But his commands are definitely attainable, not that we will ever be sinless, but every command is simple enough to obey. Jesus says "Don't steal" - we can obey this, Jesus says "Don't commit adultery" - we can obey this, Jesus says "Love your neighbor as you love your self" - we can do this, Jesus says "Love your enemies" - we can do this. Sure we may fail from time to time to do each command perfectly, but to say we can't keep God laws is not true. We need to aim higher, we can't say "It is impossible to keep God's laws", otherwise a person may not even try.

I must disagree. I will stand by my statement. I do agree we can keep the OT Ten Commandments, I do not agree that we can rise to the level of the Two. The Ten give us very specific things to do or refrain from doing that we as humans have the physical and mental capacity to accomplish. The Two require a change of the basic character and nature of humanity. There is no specific task only an ongoing state of being that is necessary and inevitably that state of being would lead to acting in the correct way without exception. We surely can and often do make the effort necessary to from time to time act as if we love our neighbor as much as we love ourselves but that is one or two actions done in an attempt to truly love our neighbor as ourselves. Being sometimes able to imitate an action that we would always perform if we were in an actual state of being where we love our neighbor as ourself is not the same as actually loving our neighbor as much as ourselves. Again we may attempt to love God with endless consistently in order to love him with all our heart and mind and soul but we are just simply not capable of being that selfless or committed. If we insist that we are able to love our neighbor as much as we love ourselves and love God with all our heart and mind and soul then we are telling the world that should anyone fall short of those things it is because they are not as worthy as we are rather than telling the world none of us is worthy and only God's intervention saves us from our unworthiness. I recognize the core of self centeredness that resides within me and realize I am helpless to remove it on my own. As for someone not trying because they know they cannot attain perfection, I think using that excuse is proof that they weren't going to try anyway so having an excuse makes them feel better about it. People committed to a goal do not simply give up because they won't fulfill it perfectly. IMO the goal of the Christian path is not to make oneself perfect it is to become humble in the face of the perfect love of God. The best motivator for me in attempting to follow the Two is knowledge that even if I never become any more loving than I have ever been, God will love me anyway. I know that I will never totally succeed in loving my neighbor as much as I love myself or of loving God with the singlemindedness required by Jesus' command but knowing that God is capable of that sort of love makes me more able to move in that direction in response not because of my own strength of character but because of God's.

 

[grasping the after wind]

Why do you hate people?

Hate is the natural response to being hurt by someone. How does one find the strength to not hate the killer of one's spouse or one's child or one's best friend? There are some recent examples of people being able to rise above that reaction but the norm is quite different.

 

[Steeno7]

No one can, only He can do that through you.

^^ This ^^