Why Loving Your Enemies is the Hardest—and Healthiest—Path

Choosing Grace Over Revenge in a World Addicted to Conflict

Recently, a friend sent me a haunting quote:

“The true mark of a Christian isn’t loving Jesus; it’s loving Judas.”

In a world that rewards bitter grudges and fighting fire with fire, the teachings of Jesus on loving our enemies can seem radical, off-putting, and naïve.

Why on earth would we put energy into loving those who treat us with contempt? Shouldn't we demand an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth? Why pursue grace and peace when revenge is more easily achievable, gratifying, and encouraged? Why pursue paths of reconciliation and peace when grudges, gossip, and taking on a victim identity feel most natural?

This is how the world thinks, even as Jesus calls us to a better, healthier way. In the Sermon on the Mount, he commands us not just to love our neighbors, but to "love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (Matthew 5:44). This sounds noble on the surface, but when things get real, it defies our every impulse. To respond to hate with love, to answer rudeness with kindness, to go two miles after being forced against our will to walk one, confronts our every impulse. And yet, this is precisely where Jesus leads us not only by command, but also by example.

Setting boundaries and shaking the dust off our feet is sometimes the best decision. Jesus had some things to say about casting our pearls before swine. But what we’re talking about here is about the kind of people we decide to be, and the kind of posture we decide to carry, even as we walk away from injury or harm. To paraphrase Nietzsche, in trying to defeat (or walk away from) the monster, we must take great care not to become the monster ourselves in the process.

The rare virtues of patience, grace, mercy, and peace—which stand in stark contrast to reactivity and taking vengeance into our own hands—have always been and will always be the way of Jesus.

At their best, the Spirit-filled children of God do not reflect the world but the heart and character of their heavenly Father who "makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust" (Matthew 5:45).

God's love is impartial, generously given to all women and men, whether they deserve it or not. Eventually, all of God's children must come to terms with his wide-reaching love, first as recipients and then as those who pass it on to others. As his image-bearers and especially as his disciples, we are called to crucify the elder-brother spirit and begin walking—clumsy though we may be—in the Father’s radical, self-giving, non-resenting, grudge-resisting ways (Luke 15:1-32).

There is nothing easy about this anchor of true Christian discipleship. As Jesus said, following him means taking up a cross daily and denying ourselves. This includes absorbing the pain of injury without retaliation, leaving vengeance in the Lord’s hands who alone knows who the true victims and villains are—for indeed, our own eyes, emotions, and biases will always deceive us to some degree—and who knows that there is a bit of both victim and villain in us all.

Loving our enemies requires strength of character, deep reservoirs of grace, and settled trust in the transformative power of love. It also requires deep humility, fueled by moment-by-moment awareness that but for the grace of God, we ourselves would be wrecked utterly.

Odds are that we, too, are the enemy to someone else.

Recognizing this can provide the checks in the spirit that help us tame our tongues when we are tempted to lash out, choose compassion over contempt, and seek the good of all. It means praying for those who persecute us, and leaving payback in the hands of the Lord. It helps to remember the Apostle Paul, who was even willing to give up his own redemptive status—were that even possible—if that’s what it took for his own worst enemies to know the love of Christ (Romans 9:1-5).

But why would we want to imitate Paul in this? What is to be gained?

Here’s what. In responding to hate with love, we gain what Scripture calls the fellowship of sharing in Jesus’ sufferings, becoming like him in his death (Philippians 3:7-11).

This is part of how we live, move, and have our being as daughters and "sons of [our] Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 5:45). Loving those who do not love us, even while keeping boundaries as needed, is an door of entry through which participation in the life of God begins. We reflect his image, we embody his character, we bear witness to his kingdom and open doors for transformation. This insight from Frederick Buechner is more costly to ignore than it is to apply:

“Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back—in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.”

When we love those who do not love us, something miraculous happens. The hard edges of our own hearts begin to soften. The walls of resentment and bitterness slowly crumble. We find ourselves growing in patience, in kindness, in empathy—much more emotionally equipped for the next offense when it comes, and it will.

As renewal takes place within us, we become living proof that the way of Christ is evidence of another, more just and lovely and life-giving world to which his daughters and sons are destined.

Enemy love is no easy path. It will never work for those who only see themselves as victims and other people as villains. It requires real courage, gutsy faith, a whole lot of wrestling with God, and readiness to suffer for the sake of the One who loved us and gave himself up for us.

This is the way of Jesus, and it is the way that leads to life. For in loving our enemies, we not only obey the command of our Savior, but we also participate in his life and are drawn more deeply into his heart, and him into ours. We become agents of reconciliation and instruments of peace in a world torn apart by hate and scorn. We become beacons of hope in dark places, living lanterns of God's love.

May we we embrace this call from our Lord, the Suffering Servant, regardless of how counter-culture it is in a world governed by bitter roots. May we live in the radical, scandalous love of Christ, in such a way that even bitter adversaries sense from us a strange, surprising, discomfortingly prophetic tone of peace and care.

Let us follow Jesus along the path of gutsy love, for any other form of love is substandard and possibly counterfeit.

As we do, we will not only honor the heart of our heavenly Father, but we will also participate in the greatest work of all—the work of depositing peace, restoration, and new life into a world in desperate need of it.