BoppWeBlog

Now that’s a catchy title. Might be good for grabbing someone’s attention.

So Christians are supposed to love their enemies. I’ve mentioned in previous blogs how this can be much more difficult than just learning to love the dude that cut in front of you at the store. So what does it mean to actually love these people that we have, as a culture, been conditioned to hate?

One pastor’s words once said this. “If I preach on Sunday about feeding the poor, finding shelterand clothing for the homeless, counseling unwed mothers and helping with the adoption process, then this is praised with ‘God bless’. But what if instead I preached about providing medical aid to Iraqis, loving Muslims, befriending gang members, comforting the families of suicide bombers, loving rapists, wife beaters, tourturers and pedofiles? I’d most likely be thown off a cliff.”

I’d like to believe this is a bit dramatic, and ridiculous, but it does raise a pretty good point. It is really hard to love those whom we have been conditioned to hate. After all, the Christian love we profess MUST be strong enough to engage these “so called” enemies. We can’t, as Christians, pick and choose who we will associate with. Not that I or anyone should or would condone any of these awful things. But we need to embrace the “unembraceable”, just as Jesus did.

So why is ‘loving terrorists’ such a big deal? This is precisely what we are called to do by Jesus Christ. I hope that I’ll continue to learn more and more what it means to live this out every day of my life.