How do I love an enemy?

[CaptWalker]

I for one always feel better when anyone of my fellow "brethren/Sisters" are at PEACE...because at that point i feel like maybe i have made some difference in someone else's life...and even if it was someone else and not me who spoke those encouraging words, it doesn't even matter at that point...GODSPEED!

Edited January 13, 2022 by CaptWalker

[Sower]

On 1/11/2022 at 10:05 AM, Melinda12 said:

I am being honest here, I do not know how to feel any sympathy for my enemy. My feelings have ranged from numbness to rage over the years, and now I feel it is good that they will know what grief and deep uncertainty and fear for their future feels like. 

 

I understand those feelings, Melinda.
Prov 11, 12, my 2nd purposely memorized scripture many years back.
"He that is void of wisdom despiseth his neighbour: but a man of understanding holdeth his peace"

I was driving down the road once thinking on that verse, and thinking that I probably could think of a good "spiritual' reason to
be really upset with someone. I thought about a person that just almost ran me off the road. Was he drunk I thought? Surely that was a justifiable reason to be mad, right. Then I thought, why was he drunk. Was he raised like me in a dysfunctional alcoholic environment, prone to get high to deal with pain of those formative years? Maybe he wasn't drunk. Perhaps he was just in a real hurry to meet his wife at the hospital to deliver their firstborn. Or maybe he's responding to a emergency call of his son who had been in an automobile accident. May it was road rage. What horrendous events did he experience to bring him to the point of trying to bring harm to another human? It dawned on me that probably everyone has some form/amount of dysfunctional baggage/battles they still live with.
Considering all this, I began to empathize/sympathize with others who were screwed up (just like myself). It could have been me with the road rage.
We all have problems. I do not always (use the wisdom) to use God's methods in dealing with them. (as a man/woman of understanding would) And now I have found, like others said  previously, to pray for those who have caused me pain, and ask God's best blessings for them. It started out mechanical, from obedience. It evolved into a want to. It really works to petition God's best for them. Then the peace comes.  As has been said;
"Most of us are fighting real/imagined battles, that  others know nothing about."

 

 

[Who me]

17 hours ago, Melinda12 said:

I will try. I am reading my Bible more today, praying more deeply and asking Jesus to guide and forgive me, to show me the way. 

I know how damaging anger is to both parties. 

 

You do not have to forgive.

Forgiveness is dependant on repentance, all you do is like Jesus being cricified, is hand the situation over to God.

Jesus prayed, " Father forgive them." 

Note he did not say 'I forgive them!'

 

We are to show love to those who perscute us.

 

Show love to this other person by praying for her and send her a card telling what you are praying for.

 

Your prayers based on your experience and need will be like hot coals on her head as she remembers how she reacted to you.

[enoob57]

2 hours ago, Who me said:

You do not have to forgive.

Matt 6:12

12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
KJV

Matt 6:14-15

14 For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:

15 But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
KJV
 

 

[TheBlade]

On 1/11/2022 at 9:05 AM, Melinda12 said:

We are only human, this is a very hard command. I could do with advice. 

When I was bereaved a few years ago, a certain person in my life showed cold shocking contempt, kicked me further in my pain, loneliness and grief. This was someone who I always assumed that I could trust. I have since rebuilt my life but never forgotten what it felt like to be vulnerable, scared and be treated like that on top. The person and I never spoke again. 

Now I hear that this person has met with great catastrophe. Their marriage has ended due to adultery of their spouse. A sordid affair means divorce, great pain etc. A bereavement really. 

I am being honest here, I do not know how to feel any sympathy for my enemy. My feelings have ranged from numbness to rage over the years, and now I feel it is good that they will know what grief and deep uncertainty and fear for their future feels like. 

I am not proud of this. What shall I pray - which Bible verses will help? 

 

 

 

 

 

For me I personally believe this "love" can only come from Him.. God/Christ. First what is love? "Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth". 

So love your enemy? Its hard for us to just not be rude or boastful or envy or arrogant.. and we should love our enemy? What to pray? Just be honest.. tell Him exactly how you feel and ask Him to help you and He will it is that easy. Trust me.. even though you don't know me but.. He truly does understand this more the we do. You ask.. you then know He will help.

[Who me]

19 hours ago, enoob57 said:

Matt 6:12

12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
KJV

Matt 6:14-15

14 For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:

15 But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
KJV
 

 

Context, context and context.

 

In this case we imitate God/Jesus and they do not forgive unless there is repentance.

Look at the sacrifical system, there a sinner had to offer an animal in order to be forgiven.

To offer a sacrifice one had to acknowledgr one was a sinner, by making the offering one was repenting.

This is the Jewish background to Jesus's teaching.

[Justin Adams]

10 minutes ago, Who me said:

Look at the sacrifical system, there a sinner had to offer an animal in order to be forgiven.

Not exactly. The sacrifices were indeed 'payments' but the actual act was to purge sacred space and all the various utensils.

Leviticus is quite plain about this and misunderstood in the modern pulpit. Dr. Heiser does a good in-depth study and lecture series about Leviticus.

[Who me]

4 hours ago, Justin Adams said:

The sacrifices were indeed 'payments' but the actual act was to purge sacred space and all the various utensils.

Then he cannot read for the individual Jew had to offer sacrifice for his own/families sins, they were a forerunner of Christ so either your dr heisler believes Jesus's death was to purify the temple or it was to pay our penalty for sin.

In which case my arguement stands, without repentance in the whole bible, there is no forgiveness.

 

Read the many verses about forgiveness with this knowledge in mind.

[enoob57]

4 hours ago, Who me said:

In this case we imitate God/Jesus and they do not forgive unless there is repentance.

There certainly was no repentance here by anyone that put Him there:
Luke 23:34

34 Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots.
KJV

The way to new birth should not be conflated with essence of new birth...
The basis of love that is His
1 Cor 13:4-10

4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part. 10 But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away. 
NKJV

1 John 4:16

16 And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.
KJV

It's about new birth... essence of... to have this you must see yourself through what God has said about us- there is nothing in and of ourselves that God wants to keep thus why one must be reborn Spiritually so that we have that which God can keep... that's why repentance is necessary so that we can cry out to Him to save us from that which is not being kept! God has nothing that can turn Him from Whom He 'IS' and God 'IS' love! It is this essence that should form the prayer of everyone of God's children as seen in the Lk 23:34 and the modeled Lord's prayer already spoken of...

[Justin Adams]

2 hours ago, Who me said:

Then he cannot read for the individual Jew had to offer sacrifice for his own/families sins, they were a forerunner of Christ so either your dr heisler believes Jesus's death was to purify the temple or it was to pay our penalty for sin.

Yeshua was the great atonement for ALL sins. Leviticus had no moral forgiveness for hi-handed sin. Yeshua PURGED the way thru the veil so we could approach the Most High Lord God. The Throne of Grace.

Substitutionary atonement is what it is all about. Like the DEATH ANGEL that passed over the houses with lamb's blood on the doorways. The Death Angel was God Himself, so I think He would know all about it.