When You Don't Feel Like Loving

Matthew 5:44

But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.

The Supreme Court decision reversing the laws on abortion raised a tremendous amount of anxious, ambiguous, angry protests and verbal combat that is still being displayed in the news media and especially on social platforms. It seems that no issue in my lifetime has stirred passions like this one, regardless of what side you are on. One advocate wrote, “if it's still in the womb, it's not murder…if I was pregnant and didn't have a husband, I'd abort that (thing) fast…a fetus is not entitled to life. If I (got pregnant) while i was drunk, out makin' mistakes, I won't be having it.”

The responses from people who took the opposite view were just as intense and even hurtful in a combative, name-calling, coarse tone that quickly turned the exchange hostile. The media is now painting advocates of pro-life as hateful, controlling manipulators that have been plotting for decades to take away women's freedom. Its as if the right to an abortion is a sacrament of a new religion and any threat to its practice is met with gnashing of teeth and violence.

As followers of Jesus, what should our response be? Jesus raised the bar with this verse and what God's heart is for those who act as enemies of Him and His kingdom. First, we are to love them. Second, we are to pray for them. In other passages, we are instructed to physically demonstrate that love by caring for their burdens and humbly providing for them if they are in need. In short, we are to overcome evil with good. And overcoming takes action, not just quiet tolerance of the other side, but the overt demonstration of love in ways that they feel it.

Is that hard? Absolutely…without God's Spirit giving you strength, you cannot be the hands and feet of Christ. So, when you are confronted, pause, pray, and respond with a gentle answer, as He would. We want them to know we are Christians by our love for them.