We live in a time when there are increasing divisions within society. There are political divisions and disagreements about cultural issues. The language used and the tone of discourse surrounding these topics is often rough and rude. Sometimes people become threatening and evil when they engage in conversations with others about hot-button issues.
As Christians, we are called to be shaped by God, and not by the culture around us. Even if everyone becomes rude and nasty, we are not to become like this. We are to be shaped by the Bible and by the Holy Spirit. God is our Father, and he has a standard of holiness that we need to follow.
It is important for us to know how to relate to our enemies.
There will be people who disagree with us, and they may become our enemies. Sometimes people become our enemies for seemingly no reason at all. They just don’t like us. They actively seek to harm us, slander us, or do evil to us.
There are two ways to deal with enemies. We can fight back against them. We can plot and scheme against them and seek to harm them. The problem with this is that it leads to hatred and bitterness. It fills our hearts with evil. It leads to stress and anxiety. This is not the way God wants us to deal with our enemies.
Once we were enemies of God (Romans 5:10). We did things against God and lived at enmity with him (Colossians 1:21). How did God relate to us when we were his enemies? He did good to us. He loved us so much that he sent his Son Jesus to die for our sins so we could be saved (John 3:16). This shows us how we are to treat our enemies. The Holy Spirit will inspire us to deal with our enemies the same way God dealt with us when we were his enemies.
To deal with enemies successfully, we need help from God. We need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. This is not something we can do in our own strength. It’s too hard. Enemies can be exhausting. We need the Holy Spirit to help us to deal with our enemies. God is an inexhaustible supply, and he will give us grace. As we draw on the fountain of the Holy Spirit, we will be empowered to deal with our enemies successfully.
Jesus said the first thing we should do for our enemies is to love them (Matthew 5:44). The word for love is agape. This is not the mushy love of feelings (philos). God does not command us to have warm, fuzzy feelings for our enemies. Instead, we need to consciously choose to do good to our enemies. This is agape love. Agape love comes from God. We need God to help us love our enemies. This love is supernatural. God will help us do this which is beyond our own abilities.
The Bible says we should pray for our enemies. We pray for their benefit, welfare, and for good to come to them. We don’t pray for evil to befall them. We don’t curse them, which means to wish evil upon them. Jesus tells us not to curse our enemies.
We are to bless our enemies. To bless them means to speak a spiritual blessing over them. It also means to say good things about them. When our enemies say bad things about us and curse and slander us, we are not to do that back to them. We are to speak good things about them. This is hard, and this is only possible by the Holy Spirit.
We are to do good to our enemies. If they’re hungry, we feed them. If they’re thirsty, we give them something to drink (Romans 12:20). We don’t do evil to them, but we repay evil with good. This shows that we are the children of our loving Heavenly Father. It’s the goodness of God that leads to repentance (Romans 2:4). The goodness we show to our enemies may lead them to repentance.
We need to forgive our enemies. Don’t hold a grudge against them and become bitter. Release them from the debt that they owe you (whether moral or material), and don’t demand repayment. Forgiveness is a process. Sometimes we have to keep forgiving someone over and over again. As we keep forgiving, we will keep releasing them, and then we will no longer be bitter. When Jesus was on the cross, he forgave those who crucified him. When Stephen was being stoned, he forgave those who threw the stones at him. We can forgive others by the strength of the Holy Spirit. When we forgive, we will be healed.
Don’t repay evil for evil. If people shout at you, don’t shout back. If they do evil to you, do good in return. God commands us to overcome evil with good.
When we have an enemy, it is important to maintain boundaries. We need to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. We don’t have to be close to our enemies. God doesn’t want us to be abused. We need to know when and how to draw the line in our relationships. As we maintain healthy boundaries, we can also love and do good to our enemies.
God is a God of justice. We don’t need to take vengeance against our enemies because that is God’s job. He will do a perfect job, and he will defend his children. Sometimes our enemies will face problems in this life because of what they do to us. But even if not, we know that in eternity God will judge them. They may end up spending an eternity in hell. Hell is a painful, terrible place. Many of our enemies may end up in hell. We don’t rejoice about this, but we feel sad about this. We want our enemies to repent so they can know God. Regardless, we don’t need to take judgment into our own hands. God will take vengeance for us, and he will do it perfectly, either in this age or in the age to come.
Dealing with enemies is hard. But the Bible shows us how to do this. And God will give us strength from the Holy Spirit in order to do this.
The Bible tells us how to relate to our enemies so that we can be at peace. There is no peace in following the way of the world and becoming nasty and full of anger and hatred, and plotting for revenge. We will only find peace as we follow God’s word.
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