Why Love Our Enemies?

We could answer the question asked in the title with a simple and firm response, “Because Jesus commanded us to!” Why is loving our enemies so important? What positive effect or benefit comes from it?

Let me share what obedience to this puzzling and difficult-to-obey command has done for me. Because I am a bold, passionate communicator of all that is in my own heart and I fearlessly stand for what I believe to be important, I have always had critics. I have said in humor, “I may be often wrong, but I’m never in doubt!” Those who disagree may find both my message and style offensive. They not only attack what I believe, but the manner in which I say it.

My fervor, firmness and passion can come across as anger. In the past some in media labeled me “God’s angry man.” Photographers sent to cover my speaking events would try to find me with an angry expression on my face as though as I were a radical terrorist. The pictures were often found on the front pages of newspapers and magazines, or connected to an article covering the event at which I spoke.

Lightheartedly from the platform I would look at the photographers from the news agencies and tell them, “I want to make your job easier because I know what you are looking for.” I would then begin to make distorted, angry expressions and gestures that would cause them to laugh so hard they could hardly hold their camera still. Nevertheless, the fact was, I was seen as an angry preacher.

The accusations by my enemies were often correct. I found myself living with anger that bordered on rage because of the lifelessness and indifference that I witnessed in so many churches around the country. I was also angry over the fact that I found it extremely difficult to get churches to come together for even the most meaningful cause: winning people to Christ. They too often wanted to know who was going to get the credit, who was going to be in the counseling area or which church would get the most members and greatest benefit from the evangelistic crusade. I found that very disturbing, and in my youth and immaturity would attack what I perceived to be damaging to the cause of Christ and the Christian witness. I was speaking truth because God by no means approves dissension, division or strife.

I also found myself angry over the fact that people professed to be Christians but seemed to have no zeal for God. I would tell them that in the New Testament, the Christians were so excited about what they had seen and heard that even those who threatened to arrest them could not stop them. They said in Acts 4, “We can’t help but speak what we’ve seen and heard.” I wondered why we so seldom were able to observe bold Christian witnesses.

My approach was wrong, however, because I did it in anger and with little expression of love and compassion. My critics—those who made it clear they were my enemies—were pointing out something that I needed to hear, not just from them and from a few friends, but from God. Rather than being inspirational, I simply attacked in anger. I am sure many Christian friends tried to tell me, but it was my enemies who got my attention by blatantly and harshly telling me the truth.

When I recognized the anger, I took it to God and He did a deep and transforming work in my life. God used my critics and my enemies, to lead me to examine my own heart and allow Him to change it to a broken heart for everything that concerns Him. I have become a very compassionate confronter.

I am no longer carried by anger, but by love and with all my heart I seek to live as soft, yielded clay not only in the hands of God who is seeking to press and shape Christ into my life, but also recognize He will use critics and enemies to help chisel away at rough places in my life. God uses their abrasiveness to help hone me into a keen cutting edge for God’s kingdom purpose. I have learned to love those I had been previously taught to avoid and those with whom I may disagree. I seek to speak the truth in love, not just to those who will agree, but to those who very vocally disagree. I am finding open doors because love and communication with others who have a different view can have a transforming effect on both sides.

For those of us seeking to teach others, let it always be in love with redemptive purpose. We can all discern actions by asking, Are they intended to redeem the individual or to damage or even destroy them? If you want to measure the intent of any truth or correction spoken, was it delivered with redemptive purpose in mind? If it was intended to destroy the individual rather than the works of the devil, it will prove non-redemptive and ineffective.

As we seek to love our enemies, may God help us each to yield our lives to the power and pressure of God’s shaping hands…whether from His fingers or filtered through them.

James Robison is the founder of LIFE Outreach International and the co-host of LIFE TODAY. Tune in this Thursday, Feb. 12, to learn more about loving our neighbors in desperate need of clean water.