#Article (Archive)

Love your enemy

Mar 11, 2010, 11:07 AM

To love your enemy is a divine commandment of God.

A person's enemy is regarded as someone who hates and opposes you bitterly, and tries to harm you.

The enemy of a person may have a reason for hating him or her. Thus the command to love our enemies may not be popular. Yet nothing can justify enmity to the point of wanting to destroy another person!

However, this is a commandment, which we need to guide us in real life, as it is a divine revelation, which can be complied with by any man or woman on earth.

Sometimes an enemy may be a friend who had been offended terribly. Enmity may be due to misunderstanding, or caused by an oversight on the part of another person, which could be rectified.

In as much as love unites the community, it also helps mould a society which knows how to understand, forgive, to be reconciled and which is at ease with itself.

We were told that to be able to love our enemies and neighbours shows that we have attained a high level of maturity in our humanity.

Though we are all naturally reluctant to face a true enemy, one cannot deny the fact that tolerance is the greatest of all virtues and that we can somehow win the confidence of our enemy through love.

We believe that when peace is at stake, it is never too late for a dialogue. Despite the serious and repeated attacks to the serene and joint cohabitation of people, peace is a possibility and a duty.

The enlightened way, quite simply, is to share in and adopt God's view of our enemy. Strange as it may sound to our ears, God sees no enemies when he looks at His creation; rather He sees men and women who are His children.

God loves all His children and is always doing good to them, and providing for their needs through other beings and all things He created.

Following and living by God's commandments will only make us better human beingsĀ - and attain the lofty heights promised to His creation.

"Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."

The Bible

(King James Version)