Love Your Enemies

In 21 Day Journey, God has called us to forgive in Luke 6:27 – 28 “But I say to you who hear: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you.” Jesus tells us to bless those who curse us and to pray for those who spitefully use us.  You can only defeat a spirit with the opposite spirit. The only other option is to respond in kind and to curse those who curse us and to do evil to those who do evil to us, but that doesn’t solve anything. When you fight fire with fire, you just get a bigger fire.   That is so hard to pray and bless those that are mean to you and hurt you deliberately.  But that is exactly what God is asking us to do.  

Ephesians 4:29 – 32 states,  Let no corrupt word proceed our of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that I may impart grace to the hearers. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.”   We can only do this with the Holy Spirit within us that helps us.  

You simply cannot hate a person for long when you are blessing and praying for them. As you are obedient to bless and pray, the Lord will heal your heart.  The essence of blessing someone is to pray for them what you want for yourself – forgiveness, grace, favor, health, prosperity, promotion, blessing upon their family, etc.  (Words from Jimmy Evans) A great reminder that we all need to hear.