Read Luke 6:27-36

“³⁵ But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. ³⁶ Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.”

When people are asked about their guiding principle in life, it’s not uncommon to hear them say something like, “Love everybody”. Even modern-day companies like Google have built momentum around their early motto, “Don’t be evil.” However, while these statements contain a sense of virtue, they actually fall incredibly short of Jesus’ disruptive call to “love your enemies”.

When we say we want to ‘love everybody’, we are usually expressing our intentions, feelings or aspirations to simply have good vibes towards everyone we happen to meet day-to-day. While this is certainly to be encouraged, it doesn’t require any of us to love in such a way that we are actively, sacrificially bringing kindness into the lives of those around us. And while living by the principle of “don’t be evil” sounds noble, it would certainly be possible to retain deep resentment towards another and still meet the requirements of “don’t be evil”.

To corporations and individuals alike, Jesus offers a far nobler and divine invitation. He says we are to love – bless, pray and lend to – even those who hold evil intentions towards us. Simply possessing loving feelings or sympathy towards those whose hearts are filled with hatred doesn’t cut it. Rather, we are to live with a proactive, hands-on kind of love.

This kind of unnatural love can only be attained by the love within you being greater than the evil around you. This is why Christ’s command seems at odds with our natural understanding and experience of reality. Without possessing Christ’s love within us, it’s an entirely unreasonable request. However, if by faith we can obtain his love in our hearts, it then becomes possible to embody this other-worldly love for those who have wronged us in our everyday lives. In this way, we approach Christ’s goal for us of becoming “merciful, even as your Father is merciful.”

When this internal-external alignment does not happen, we become hypocrites, failing to live as we know we ought. We might know God’s love in our hearts but fail to act accordingly. Alternatively, we might aim to love like Christ but perform out of duty, rather than true love. This too is a misaligned, hypocritical life.

Jesus, however, is the perfect embodiment of this lovingly aligned life. Though at some point we have all been his ‘enemy’, His love didn’t just dwell within him. Rather his love flowed out onto the cross to set us free from sin and self! Truly, he has embraced us even while we were still sinners, enemies of the truth that emanates from him. What would it take for us to love our enemies as he has loved us?