Love Your Enemies

This Sunday we will finish our mini-series in Romans 12. So far, we have seen that the most important love is God's love for us (Romans 12:1a). Then comes our love for Him (Romans 12:1b-2). Then comes our love for one-another (Romans 12:3-16).

This week we will cover a more challenging kind of love: the love we are to have for our enemies (Romans 12:17-21). Our natural inclination when others hurt us is to take revenge (fighting fire with fire). Now that we are united to Christ we have a new nature and are able to overcome evil with good. We also are set free from the temptation to take revenge because we can trust God to bring about justice.

While we may find it difficult to be kind to unbelievers who persecute us, the hardest of all kinds of love may be when those closest to us, including other believers, wound us. Paul was deeply hurt by others who claimed to preach the gospel (Philippians 1:15-18). He also was concerned by the conflict between two women in the church in Philippi (Philippians 4:1-2). Believers in Corinth were suing each other (I Corinthians 6).

I have been very encouraged to see some practical responses to the sermon series on love.