Tag: What the Bible says about loving our enemies

Bible Verse of The Day – 7-29-21

Matthew 5:43-44 (NKJV) 43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you…

How do we this? This has got to be one of the hardest things to do.

Love our enemies, bless those who curse us, do good to those who hate us and PRAY for those who spitefully use and persecute us. Wow!

As I was reading this morning, and I saw this verse, I was like, “God, help us. We can’t do this without You. Because I know who I am and what my flesh is like.

I usually just run away from people who treat me badly.

I know how I am. And if someone does me wrong, well they’d better look for another friend, because I don’t go for it.

I just don’t like to be around people like this.

And one more thing; these types of people pull the worst out of me. So, I try to stay away; far away”.

In the scripture above, we are given clear-cut directions on how to love like God.

This does not come natural to us; it is not a normal fleshly behavior. As a matter of fact, our flesh would like it better if we could hate our enemy. Now that would be easy to do, right?!

The point here is that we need to learn to love like God. After all, we are His children and we need to emulate His ways.

We need to be like Papa in every way. And this will take a lot of letting Him mature us in the things we should do.

If we can learn to walk in this kind of love, what does the Word of God say about it?

Matthew 5:48 (NKJV) 48 Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.

This does not mean that we will be perfect and never sin. The perfect that the scripture is speaking of here is the way we should love others; the same way He loves us.

Even in very hard and difficult situations, even in their sin, this kind of loving others is God’s perfect love.

You see, it takes discipline to walk in this. It takes obedience to tame that fleshly desire that otherwise wants to lash out, call them names or argue our point.

It takes absolute Holy Spirit-led control over our emotions and attitude. It takes a huge change of heart.

That, my friend, will only happen if we submit our fleshly, hard heart to Him and let Him change it; let Him give us a new heart.

Ezekiel 36:26 (NKJV) 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

Amen.

Pastor Curt & Pastor Ellie

Seven Seas Ministries
P.O. Box 272
Bradford, RI 02808

401-315-0902

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Bible Verse of The Day – 12-27-17

Psalm 67:1 (NKJV) 67 God be merciful to us and bless us, And cause His face to shine upon us…

If we want to change the way things are going, we may need to change our attitude and the way we see things.

We might need to change the way we look and feel toward certain people, and stop blaming them for the things that we are going through in our personal life.

Let the past be in the past. We can’t allow it to ruin our future any longer.

God is merciful toward us and He blesses us as we walk in His example and do the same for others, no matter how they treat us. And as we do this, things will begin to change.

Pray for them, bless them and move on. Start today by letting go of the things we have held onto for years. Let the wounds in our heart heal as we take this step today.

Matthew 5:44 (NKJV) 44 But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you…

This verse contains a lot of action words, and no one said any of them would be easy. But if we want change, these are the steps we need to work toward.

Dear God in Heaven,

I come to You today and ask for your help. I want to do what is right. I have been hurting for a long time, and today I want to be free and let my heart heal.

Forgive me for holding onto things that I should have let go of a long time ago. I want to be able to sincerely walk out Matthew 5:44. I can’t do this on my own. I know that I need You, your strength and your compassion to take these steps. You know me best. I ask for Your help in fixing me up so I can let go and move on. I truly want to love like You.

Thank You. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.

Pastor Curt & Pastor Ellie

Seven Seas Ministries
P.O. Box 272
Bradford, RI 02808

401-315-0902

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Bible Verse of The Day – 10-25-17

Matthew 5:44-45 (NKJV) 44 But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

I know what you’re thinking; how in this world do we love our enemies?

This is a big thing and most times we just skim over it, because deep down we all know it’s impossible for man to love his enemy.

So let’s take a look at what an enemy is. An enemy is someone that is antagonistic to another; one seeking to injure, overthrow, or confound an opponent.

You mean to tell me I have to love those who want to antagonize me, injure me or overthrow me, and that’s only one part of this verse?

How do we do this with the right heart and not just go through the motions? How do we keep our heart from not wanting to do the same things back to them that they’ve done to us?

We are human, with feelings, and those feelings sometimes scream really loud to do the opposite of what these verses are saying. How do we win over what our own feelings, mind, heart and our attitude are saying? It’s so hard, and seems impossible.

Matthew 19:26 (NKJV)26 But Jesus looked at them and said to them, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

The first thing we need to do is get out of our heads. We can’t do this with intellect. We have to get into the Word of God. God’s word has a way of softening the hardest of hearts.

When hurtful things come our way, it can cause our heart to get hard quickly and our minds start to race. There is no room for God when our heart has been hardened and we are operating solely on intellect.

The second thing to do is to try to avoid spending a lot of time with negative people.

We should surround ourselves with people who can find the good things even in hard times. That doesn’t mean finding people who don’t face reality. But people that see things for what they are and choose to give it to God. They spend more time praying, listening and worshiping Him than they do trying to be in control of the situation.

Third, we shouldn’t speak whatever we feel like speaking or saying in that moment of anger, persecution or when we’re being accused. Learn to hold the tongue and wait on God to bring understanding so that when we do speak, if needed, it is well worth saying and good seeds are planted.

Without God it is impossible to live out these verses. But, with Him, we can learn to walk in them and live them out daily. Amen.

Pastor Curt & Pastor Ellie

Seven Seas Ministries
P.O. Box 272
Bradford, RI 02808

401-315-0902

If you know someone who will enjoy this or be encouraged by it, please feel free to share it with them!

To have the Bible Verse of The Day delivered to your inbox each day, please Click Here and then enter your email address in the box near the upper left corner of the page. 

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Click the player below listen to today’s devotional.

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