Love my Enemies?

Love my enemies; you have got to be kidding right? Oh, you’re not…okay. That is a common (sometimes my reaction) to part of the Sermon on the Mount found in Matthew 5 :44 “But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…” I wrote a post a while back about the greatest commandment which is of course love God above all else but also love your neighbor as yourself. Now I can sometimes have trouble with that I mean if a person, not even an enemy, lies to me or tricks me or insults me it’s tough to love them even a little bit, so the question is how do we do this? We can’t write off everything people do to us, if someone double-crosses me am I just to sit down and say “Oh well I am supposed to love them and do nothing.” Of course not because that is not how we treat ourselves. I would assume everyone treats themselves well I mean who wouldn’t, and C.S. Lewis makes an interesting point about that. Lewis writes in Mere Christianity that while we all love ourselves that doesn’t mean we accept or even like the things we do, there are plenty of times where I do something I know is bad and feel terrible and dislike myself for doing it, but that doesn’t stop me from taking good care of myself and praying that God will help me be a better person. When someone does something wrong we aren’t to accept it, but we aren’t to yell at them either. What we should do is treat them as ourselves which means acknowledge that what they did was wrong, but still pray that they will learn from their mistakes. What did Jesus say on the cross “Oh their not sinning at all” or “Father please forgive them” He called them out in their sin by saying they needed forgiveness but he didn’t hold it against them entirely instead he prayed on their behalf.