Love Your Enemies, Help!

Terrorists?

Whitney Hopler’s photo taken from her article on Crosswalk.com

“But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you.” — Luke 6:27–31

Many of God’s teaching and sayings seem difficult for believers to follow.

Loving our neighbor as ourselves seems like something that could be followed although not ever completely mastered. Some neighbors might be more difficult to love than others.

Loving ourselves might even be hard but the goal seems to be something we could strive towards.

But some of his commands are not as easy to follow. For instance, turn the other cheek. Christians as a group today do not all appear to grasp that one. There seem to be all kinds of wars going on within the Christian communities themselves as well as Christians with the secular communities.

Fighting back to defend yourself may be the norm but that is not turning the other cheek.