Loving Our Enemies

This morning I did a Lectio Devina through a Facebook group I am a part of called The Presence Project.  Let me know if you want to join the group and I will add you in.  :) The portion of Scripture we meditated on was Luke 6:27-32.  These verses are on loving our enemies.  These are some convicting verses to slow down and meditate on; to contemplate and allow the Lord to speak to your heart about.  The words "do good" stuck out to me.  Do good.  It's easy to do good to those we love.  It's easy to do good to those we know love us.  It's not so easy to do good to those who are difficult, who don't like us, let alone love us, and who, quite honestly, aren't looking out for us and want to see us fail.

I was listening to the Lord as I slowly settled into these verses, and He impressed on my heart that living in obedience to these words, these very words of Jesus, that's how we cut through the darkness.

We cut through the darkness and we love our enemies by clinging to these words of Jesus and allowing them to change us from the inside out.  We cannot do it without Him.  Without Him it's impossible.

What does this look like?  How do we love our enemies when our flesh so easily wants to do the opposite?

During this time of sitting in His presence, listening, being still, I opened my eyes for a moment and stared out my window. The sun was shining down on the ice covered world around me.  Trees and branches, bushes and thistles shimmering as the sun and ice connected; expelling light and color and beauty all around.

That's us!  We are filled and covered by the Spirit of God, and Jesus is shining on us, and in us and through us.  Just like those branches covered in ice, we expel light, His light, everywhere we go.

And because of that we can love people who don't love us.  We can pray for people that don't treat us well.  We don't have to retaliate.  We can go the extra mile, even with people that don't have our best interest at heart.  We can treat everyone the way we want to be treated.  We can be slow to speak and slow to anger.

But here's the clincher....we can't do this in the flesh. We can't do this with fake smiles and gritted teeth. There's a difference between that and allowing these words of Jesus to penetrate to the deepest parts of our hearts and bring change.  I have been praying lately that the Lord would continue to open the eyes of my heart. (Ephesians 1:18) How incredible when we can truly love our enemies from a place of freedom in Christ;  freedom from no longer needing to fight, freedom from our need to have the last word, freedom from feeling like we always have to defend ourselves, freedom from being so easily offended, freedom from feeling rejected by people.  Freedom comes when we allow the Truth of Him to flood our hearts and we can legitimately put our fists down.  When the Truth of whose we are becomes so real and tangible, we can offer our shirt to someone that has already taken our coat without hesitation or thinking twice about it.  It's only THAT kind of revelation that can cause us to turn the other cheek. When we are so covered and filled by Him we can freely give ourselves away, even in the hardest of places and under the toughest of circumstances with the most difficult of people. We are coming upon a time in America when His followers will need this kind of awakening and understanding. We can love our enemies well when we are truly awakened to the fact we have Jesus and have nothing to lose or prove this side of Heaven. So just as those branches outside are dripping water to the ground as the sun shines on them, we can drip with Living Water everywhere we go as the Son shines on us. That's how we change the world around us.    

Do you love your enemies?  My prayer for us today is that we will take time to listen to Jesus and allow His words from the Book of Luke to bring revelation by the power of His Spirit, and that we would abide so closely to the Father, just like Jesus did, and out of that abiding, obedience and surrender, we would truly love each other as Jesus commands.  My prayer for us all today is that the eyes of our hearts will be enlightened so that we may know the hope to which He has called us!  My prayer for us is that we will entrust ourselves to Him, even when in the presence of our enemies.      

"When they hurled their insults at Him, He did not retaliate; when He suffered, He made no threats. Instead, He entrusted Himself to Him who judges justly." 1 Peter 2:23



***Disclaimer: I am in no way suggesting to stay in an abusive situation or that you shouldn't have healthy boundaries.  That's not what I am speaking about in this blog post.  If you are in an abusive relationship or need help or support regarding any relationship that is causing you physical, emotional, sexual or spiritual harm, please reach out to resources in your community or someone you can trust for help.