"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."
Matthew 5:44
Christ's command to love our enemies is not abstract. When he spoke of turning the other cheek, Jesus gave concrete examples of what he meant. When He said we should love our enemies, Our Lord expanded his meaning even further. We should not only go the extra mile, but also bless those who curse us. Not only should we lend freely, but likewise graciously do good to those who do us evil. It is difficult to picture such counter-intuitive choices, so perhaps we can learn something from an Old Testament character who embodied what Jesus described. Someone who lived by these extreme practices — the young man David.
David's military competence won him praise and rank, even a wife. The reward for his loyalty was the jealousy of a deranged king. He suffered assassination attempts. His wife was given to another man. After being driven from the palace, hunted across the nation, David later had to live with the knowledge that God's priests were executed for aiding him. God had promised him the throne; all he got was betrayal, exile, and guilt. Could it have been any harder for David to respond in a godly way? He faced an emotionally abusive, verbally abusive, and physically abusive father-in-law. From a human standpoint, David would have been perfectly justified in hating Saul, speaking rudely of him, and fighting back.
But he didn't.
At their closest encounter, in the darkness of a cave, when Saul had brought 3,000 men to hunt David in the mountains, David had his chance to fulfill God's promise to him. His men egged him on. David crept up on Saul and, so secretly Saul didn't realize anyone was with him, David cut a corner from his enemy's robe. Almost immediately he repented. "The LORD forbid that I should do this thing to my master" (1 Samuel 24:6). Not his enemy — his master. David was not delusional. He recognized the wrongs Saul had done to him and the danger the king posed, but David still refused to think of his enemy as his enemy.
David explained himself to Saul, and his speech shows that some of his unusual reasoning was based on an ancient Hebrew proverb: "From evil people come evil deeds" (1 Samuel 24:13 NLT). David had been treated unfairly, but to respond in kind, to balance the table of justice, David would have to commit evil deeds. He refused. He turned the question of justice over to God. "Let the LORD judge between you and me" (1 Samuel 24:12). He would not even harbor a grudge. When Saul asked David to make an oath not to destroy the royal family line, David swore it.
In story after story, the warrior David strangely refused to make enemies. He entrusted his parents to Israel's rival the Moabites. He himself took refuge among the Philistines, a nation he had often met in battle and whose own champion, Goliath, he had slain. When news of Saul's death arrived, he mourned. As king, when the ruler of heathen Aram died, David sent his condolences to the newly ascended son. More than any other Old Testament character, David worked to avoid making enemies. Perhaps that is the characteristic God had in mind when He rejected Saul and caused Samuel to prophesy of David, "The Lord has sought for Himself a man after His own heart" (1 Samuel 13:14).
Jesus seemed to think so. When He commanded us to love our enemies, He concluded by promising that if we did, if we blessed those who cursed us and do good in response to evil, then "you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect" (Matthew 5:48). The promise of perfection has always been open to us. Here it is in Jesus's words. Perfection is loving those who hate us.
Call to Action
What enemies do you have? Do you resent a boss or a co-worker? Are you holding grudges against estranged family members? Perhaps your own children feel like adversaries. I urge you to do as David did and turn the relationship over to our heavenly judge. Jesus promised that when we love those who are against us and those we consider enemies, then we will have the perfection of God the Father. Won’t you choose to love today?
Unless noted otherwise, scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
