I\u2019m carrying on one more day of recognizing the power of love. The power to overpower hate with love. Martin Luther King Jr. did that and he gave his life for it. I started thinking about how illogical Jesus\u2019 words seem to be in Matthew 5:44. \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!” Does that make any sense at all \u2013 love our enemies? It does — in the light of the ONE Who said those words and gave HIS life to prove they make a profound difference in this world.
How is it possible to love our enemies? How can we do good to those who hate us, curse us, use us and persecute us? And, even a step further, \u201cbless them and pray for them\u201d? It seems impossible, but Dr. King explained it well in this quote: \u201cDarkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.\u201d There is another reason Jesus says, ‘Love your enemies’. It is this: that love has within it a redemptive power. That power eventually transforms the lives of people. We just keep loving them, and they won’t be able to stand it. The power of our love will break down under the load. Love is redemptive, and that’s why Jesus said, “Love.” Love builds up and creates. Hate tears down and destroys. So build up. Create. LOVE!
I try to live by the words, What Would Jesus Do? (WWJD), in determining what action to take in situations. He set the example for us in every area of our lives. He had enemies \u2013 plenty of them. They rejected Him, tortured Him and even killed Him. He loved them anyway. And if we believe in Him, it\u2019s time to be that kind of lover, too, 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. Getting even with our enemies isn’t even in the equation. Blessing them is.
We are living in a time where there is so much need for love, more so than ever. It starts with each of us reaching deep inside and connecting to THE ONE Who lives big within us and with His love, we can offer our loving selves to others, not because we seek anything, but because our cup is full of love and we have nothing more to do than simply share it with others.
I invite you today to be the change you want to see in the world, to be love and loving towards others. 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","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019m carrying on one more day of recognizing the power of love. The power to overpower hate with love. Martin Luther King Jr. did that and he gave his life for it. I started thinking about how illogical Jesus\u2019 words seem to be in Matthew 5:44. \u201cLove your enemies! Bless them that curse you! Do…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11781,"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":[16213,16206,16212],"tags":[11945,168,4902,91,132,111,16201,113,16211,8739,7032,16210,1414],"class_list":["post-11780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-love-your-enemies","category-martin-luther-king-jr","category-power-of-love","tag-bless-them","tag-blessing","tag-darkness","tag-gods-love","tag-love","tag-love-your-enemies","tag-martin-luther-king-jr","tag-matthew-544","tag-overpower-hate","tag-power-of-love","tag-pray-for-them","tag-redemptive-power","tag-wwjd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11780","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=11780"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11783,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11780\/revisions\/11783"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}