You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust. Matthew 5:43-45 NKJV
If you have ever dealt with someone who was just rebellious or willfully defiant, especially a small child, you may find that the use of reverse psychology will serve you well. You indicate that you want them to do the opposite of what you really want them to do. If they are defiant, they will do the opposite of what you tell them to do which in reality is exactly what you wanted them to do.
If that sounds confusing, it is. I have people in my family who are that way and making an effort to basically think and speak opposite of what your thoughts and desires are can be exhausting.
Sadly, if we think in a worldly way, we need to turn that completely around in order to be obedient to God’s word.
We need to follow God’s word and not our hearts. We are told in Jeremiah 17:9 that our hearts are deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; Who can know it? If you think you should follow your heart, this is your Bible verse telling you that you might want to rethink that.
When someone is our enemy it means they oppose us in some way, the last thing we want to do is love them, but that’s exactly what our Scripture passage tells us to do. We are told to bless them and not curse them.
When someone hates us it’s natural for us to hate them back. We want to slander them and make other people hate them too. But that is not what God’s word tells us to do. Instead, it tells us to do good to them.
When someone spitefully uses us and/or persecutes us, we want to curse them, but instead we are told to bless them.
When people are mean to us or mistreat us or someone we love, we are naturally inclined to react by striking back. Doing so will just keep a feud going. It will also cause hatred and anger to build up in our hearts. This is not how we, as Christians, are supposed to live. We must forgive others and we can’t do that by harboring hatred against them.
We must do the opposite. We must do good to them, we must love them and bless them and pray for them.
It’s our job to forgive them and to love them. It doesn’t mean that we trust them or that we are their best buddies, it just means that we don’t wish them harm and we forgive them and pray for them. We may have to love them from a safe distance.
God loves everyone. He sends His sunrise and his rain to all of us. Only those who surrender to Him, however, will be called children of God. Now this is another thing that is backwards, as Christians, the only way we win is to surrender. Surrender brings us glory.
I know all of this is hard to grasp, but the more we pray and read our Bible and get into a close relationship with Jesus, the easier it will become. Surrender your life to Him. Deny yourself and take up your cross and follow Him. Whatever you do, don’t follow your heart.
Love others even when they are unlovable and trust in God to deal with them as He sees fit. Vengeance is His job as Paul reminds us in Romans 12:19.
The basic thing we need to remember is don’t do the natural thing, do the things that God calls us to do which are usually opposite what feels natural to us and you will be in good shape.
Have a great day!