Luke 6:27-28; 31 - NIV
27. “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28. bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.
31. Do to others as you would have them do to you.
In the Women’s Bible Study, we have been going through the Book of Luke. A few weeks ago we studied Luke 6: 27-36. That section talks about loving your enemies.
I was moved by the first two verses; verse 27 and 28.
Loving our enemies does not come naturally. Who is our enemy? A person who has hurt you or betrayed you, someone who has made your life difficult, someone who is always opposed to you in almost every way. Maybe it’s someone who is always pointing out your flaws or demeans you in a passive aggressive way.
God calls us to love all people, just as He loves all people. Love here isn’t a feeling. It’s an action.
Loving your enemies involves the following actions:
Do good to them
Bless them
Pray for them
Most of us want to do the opposite of these things. When we react and retaliate against our enemies, it produces a burden that consumes us. We carry anger and bitterness against that person.
Jesus is teaching us a lesson that frees us from harboring anger and bitterness. When we can truly love our enemies, doing good to them, blessing them and praying for them, its shifts our focus and becomes an action that makes us look different to the world. It helps us to reflect Jesus and we are not burdened by retaliation, anger, bitterness and sadness.
Which brings us to to verse 31, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”
Loving our enemies in action demonstrates verse 31. Loving others, this “Golden Rule” as it is referred to it, becomes a reality. We will be treating others the way we would like to be treated.
I follow this doctor on Instagram, he calls himself the internet brain surgeon. He’s a Christian and shares about the way our brains work and how we can do “brain surgery” to reprogram our brain. Our amygdala is where gut reaction decisions are created. Instead of “reacting” immediately, wait 10 minutes before your react. This allows the prefrontal cortex to takeover and you can calm down and form a better calm response.
Proverbs 16:32 says, “Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.”
My pray for everyone is that they would love others like Jesus loves us. He took the punishment for the sins of all people, for the past, the present and the future. He still loved the people who put Him on that cross. He asked God the Father to forgive them because they didn’t know what they were doing; crucifying the Son of God. It takes a tremendous amount of love to forgive that kind of action against oneself. There is so much power in the love of our Lord Jesus Christ!
When someone hurts me or makes me angry, I have to remind myself that God loves that person and that I should love them too. It’s definitely not easy to actually love them like God loves them, but acknowledging that fact, helps tremendously. It takes my focus off of the situation and turns my attention to God.
I pray that we all keep our focus on our ever loving, almighty God!
Blessings in our Lord Jesus Christ!
Allyson Hara
