{"id":1135,"date":"2016-11-12T11:25:00","date_gmt":"2016-11-12T17:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/love-our-enemies-its-upside-down-world\/"},"modified":"2019-02-18T10:08:02","modified_gmt":"2019-02-18T16:08:02","slug":"love-our-enemies-its-upside-down-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/?p=1135","title":{"rendered":"Love Our Enemies? It’s an Upside Down World!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It can seem like we\u2019re really in an upside down world when we read some quotes from Jesus. In Matthew 5:44, He said \u201cLove your enemies! Bless them that curse you! Do good to them that hate you! Pray for them who spitefully use you, and persecute you!\u201d Holy jumping catfish! Doesn\u2019t that sound just preposterous? How could I possibly love someone that hurt me or rejected me or even cursed me?<\/p>\n

How is it possible to love our enemies? How can we do good to anyone that hates us, curses us, uses us and persecutes us? And, even a step further, to \u201cbless them and pray for them\u201d? How absolutely IMPOSSIBLE these words seem to be! <\/p>\n

I think Martin Luther King, Jr.\u2019s words explain it so well: \u201cDarkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. Now there is a final reason I think that Jesus says, ‘Love your enemies’. It is this: that love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals. Just keep loving them, and they can\u2019t stand it too long. And by the power of your love they will break down under the load. That\u2019s love, you see. It is redemptive, and this is why Jesus says ‘love’. There\u2019s something about love that builds up and is creative. There is something about hate that tears down and is destructive. So love your enemies.”<\/p>\n

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I like to live by the words, What Would Jesus Do? (WWJD), in determining what action I should take in any given situation. He set the example for us in every area of our lives. He had enemies \u2013 plenty of them. They lied about Him. They beat Him. They mocked Him. Eventually, they even killed Him. He loved them anyway. And if we believe in Him, it\u2019s time to turn things \u201cupside down\u201d and \u201cinside out\u201d, and say to our enemies, \u201cI love you. I would rather die than hate you.\u201d When we live that way, we\u2019ll find the strength to love our enemies, to bless those who curse us, and to pray for those who spitefully use us. Let\u2019s don\u2019t get even with our enemies. Let\u2019s ask God to bless them instead. If we can let go of our anger long enough to pray like this, we\u2019ll discover an amazing benefit \u2013 we\u2019ll be putting ourselves in a position TO BE blessed and loved!<\/p>\n

John said in 1 John 4:7 \u201cLet us love one another\u201d. I like that. John included himself in that exhortation. He is telling us that everyone is called to love. And actions speak so much louder than words. It\u2019s not enough to just say \u201cI love you\u201d. We really need to actually do it.
\nI don\u2019t know which side of love\/hate you live on, but as for me, I plan to do my best to err on the side of love. I know it will serve me well as I sow seeds of love everywhere I go. Maybe we should be love seed scatterers. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It can seem like we\u2019re really in an upside down world when we read some quotes from Jesus. In Matthew 5:44, He said \u201cLove your enemies! Bless them that curse you! Do good to them that hate you! Pray for them who spitefully use you, and persecute you!\u201d Holy jumping catfish! Doesn\u2019t that sound just…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[6575,7056,7057,111,160,7058,1413],"class_list":["post-1135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-1-john-47","tag-darkness-cannot-drive-out-darkness","tag-let-us-love-one-another","tag-love-your-enemies","tag-martin-luther-king","tag-upside-down-world","tag-what-would-jesus-do"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1135"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19642,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1135\/revisions\/19642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}