Love Your Enemies

even when they are suffering

Scripture Reading: Psalm 35:11-16

When bad things happen to bad people, if we don’t check ourselves, our response will be glee. We feel a sense of satisfaction when people get what we believe they had coming to them. We feel justified in our assessment of them. Life seems a little fairer.

In our text today, we find David living out the kind of life Jesus extolled. When the people who sought to destroy him fell ill, David felt sorrow for them. He prayed earnestly. He fasted.

Notice how David was able to hold this tension between the guilt and the need of his enemies. He could both acknowledge their wickedness and feel grief for them in their affliction. He could yearn and pray for the justice of God to fall on them and for their sickness to be relieved.

Jesus said, you have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy,” but I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust…

Is there someone you count as an enemy? Someone who has wronged you or hurt you in some way? Ask God to make you more like Himself today. Have faith that He will and express that faith by praying, not just for the one you love and the one who loves you, but the one who acts like your enemy.

To do so is not to excuse their sin or pretend that it didn’t or isn’t happening. Praying for them doesn’t mean you abandon hope for the justice of God to prevail. Do like David. Learn to hold both things in tension. Desire justice and hope for mercy too.