Loving My Enemies – Extreme Condition One

Greetings Dear Reader,

As I said yesterday the type of love your enemies we are discussing is active rather than passive.  We need to put hands and feet on the verb.  The first extreme condition that Jesus suggests is that we bless those who curse us.  First I would like to offer and extreme translation of this.

Bless:

1) to praise, celebrate with praises

2) to invoke blessings

3) to consecrate a thing with solemn prayers

3a) to ask God’s blessing on a thing

3b) pray God to bless it to one’s use

3c) pronounce a consecratory blessing on

4) of God

4a) to cause to prosper, to make happy, to bestow blessings on

4b) favored of God, blessed

 

 Curse:

1) to curse

2) to wish for doom

3) to imprecate evil upon

So an extreme translation of this facet of love your enemies would be:  Praise and celebrate, invoke blessings upon, and consecrate with solemn prayer by asking God’s blessing those who curse you, wish for your doom, or imprecate evil upon you.

So when the terrorists of the world scream for our death and destruction we are to pray for God to bless them and we are to consecrate them to God.  Let that settle in for a moment.  When people mock us for following Christ we should find what is good about them and acknowledge it.  Maybe we should ask them to dinner.  We should surely ask the Father to consecrate them to his own purposes. 

So in the everyday my obligation is to show love to those who declare themselves my enemies by both being a blessing to them and by asking the Father to make them his special projects.  I must not discriminate in kindness and compassion.   The more someone hates me the more I must love him.  

There is no way out of this.  Even now my mind wishes to invoke some circumstantial reasoning wherein I justify cursing instead of blessing.   Even Jesus brother James made it clear that we cannot both bless and curse and be honest followers of Christ.  I must love to the extreme. 

There is more.  Jesus demands all of us and tomorrow I will dive a bit deeper.  How about you Dear Reader?  Are you still with me?  I value your company as I seek to find the real meaning of “Love your enemies”.  Please share your thoughts with me.+

Wishing you joy in the journey,

Aramis Thorn

Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every writer who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a home owner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure store.”

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