Now there is a final reason I think that Jesus says, 'Love your enemies.' It is this: that love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals.
Love even for enemies is the key to the solution of the problems of our world.
Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend.
It"s good to keep wide-open ears and listen to what everybody else has to say, but when you come to make a decision, you have to weigh all of what you"ve heard on its own, and place it where it belongs, and come to a decision for yourself; you"ll never regret it. But if you form the habit of taking what someone else says about a thing without checking it out for yourself, you"ll find that other people will have you hating your friends and loving your enemies.
Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people.
It is Love that will save our world and our civilization.
He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love.
Instead of loving your enemies - treat your friends a little better.
There is some good in the worst of us, and some evil in the best of us.
Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you
Returning hate for hate multiplies hate.
Let us be practical and ask the question: How do we love our enemies?
Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.
Jesus is not an impractical idealist; he is the practical realist.
So when Jesus says "Love your enemies," he is setting forth a profound and ultimately inescapable admonition.
Every genuine expression of love grows out of a consistent and total surrender to God.
Love is understanding, redemptive goodwill for all men, so that you love everybody.
If you succumb to the temptation of using violence in the struggle, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness, and your chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos.
There may come a time when it will be possible for you to humiliate your worst enemy or even to defeat him, but in order to love the enemy you must not do it... The Greek language has another word [for love]. It calls it agape. Agape is more than romantic love. Agape is more than friendship. Agape is understanding, redemptive goodwill for all men. Agape is an overflowing love, a spontaneous love, which seeks nothing in return. And theologians would say that it is the love of God operating in the human heart. When you rise to love on this level you love all men, not because you like them, not because their ways appeal to you, not because they are worthful to you, but you love all men because God loves them. And you rise to the noble heights of loving the person who does the evil deed while hating the deed that the person does. And I think this is what Jesus means when he says, “Love your enemies.”
There's another reason why you should love your enemies, and that is because hate distorts the personality of the hater. We usually think of what hate does for the individual hated or the individuals hated or the groups hated. But it is even more tragic, it is even more ruinous and injurious to the individual who hates. [...] For the person who hates, the true becomes false and the false becomes true. That's what hate does.
I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.
Loving Your Enemies... Far from being the pious injunction of a utopian dreamer, this demand is an absolute necessity for the survival of our civilization. Yes it is love that will save our world and civilization; love even for our enemies.
There's something about love that builds up and is creative. There is something about hate that tears down and is destructive. So love your enemies.
Somewhere somebody must have some sense. Men must see that force begets force, hate begets hate, toughness begets toughness. And it is all a descending spiral, ultimately ending in destruction for all and everybody. Somebody must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate and the chain of evil in the universe. And you do that by love.
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