Love your Enemies

Mathew 5:44 tells us to love our enemies and to bless those who curse us. It tells us to do good to those who hate us and pray for those who spitefully use us and persecute us.

I don't know about you but the last thing that I want to do is love the person who abused and hurt me, however God wants us to love them anyway. 

I once heard a story of a man. One day he was relaxing under a tree and the trees roots stretched over a river bank. While he was resting, he noticed that the river was rising. A scorpion was caught in the roots and it was about to drown. This man took pity on the scorpion and he stretched out on the roots and reached down to free the scorpion. Every time he did this, the scorpion would strike back at him. There was an observer sitting near the man.  The observer saw what was happening. The observer turned to the man and asked  “Don't you know that's a scorpion, and it the nature of a scorpion to want to sting you? 

The man turned to the observer and said, “ That may very well be, but it is my nature to save. Do I need to change my nature because the scorpion does not change his nature? 

Sometimes it is impossible to help those who are hurting or are in need of something. Sometimes it is thier nature to stick at you and hurt you, much like the scorpion. Sometimes it is an instant reaction to hurt you before you hurt them. We may not know why they react this way. It could be passed experiences. It could be thier nature it could be a factor of many different things. We may never really know the reason.

The reason is not what is important. What is  important is that we embrace the nature of God.

In Luke 6:27-36 we are told again to "Love our enemies. 

We do this in how we respond to painful events. As Christians, we are to pray for those we don't like- even those we are mad at. We pray because it changes our hearts. It helps the hearts of the other person to change. It also heals. So next time that person hurts you or you try and help him and he don't want help. God wants us to love them anyway. And pray for them.