Jesus, throughout His journey on earth, constantly talked about love, especially the concept of love your enemy. “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:43-45). Well this is definitely easier said than done. How am I supposed to love those who persecute me? They surely don’t deserve it. That goes back to another issue: why does God love us when we so don’t deserve it? When we sin, we become enemy of God. Yet He loves us so much that He died for us on the cross to bring us back to Him, to have fellowship with Him like how it was designed to be at the beginning of time in the Garden. If He loves us that much, then who are we not to love our enemy? “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

Joyce Meyer was sexually abused by her own father, yet when she became an adult, she treated him with love and care. She helped him with the house, brought him back to her life, and took care of him as a regular loving daughter. How did she do that? The families of the victims killed by the shooting in Charleston stood up in court, spoke to the judge, and told the murderer they have forgiven him. How did they do that? Obviously this kind of love cannot come from this world. This kind of love is so big that the world knows not of. This kind of love, or if I may call unconditional love, comes only from God above. Only He can love like that. And because He loved Joyce, she loves her father. Because He loved the families of the victims, they too love the shooter. This love is contagious, like a domino effect. Once we have received and tasted how wonderful this unconditional love is from God, we can’t help it but spreading it around to love and forgive others, even those who don’t deserve but desperately need it more than anything.

That’s the true meaning behind love your enemy. It’s more than just saying hi to the kids we don’t like at schools, staying cordial with the colleagues and bosses we can’t tolerate at work. Love your enemy is taking action to actually love and forgive others, especially those that hurt us and persecute us. It’s the choice we have to make every day to love and to forgive. During the most difficult time of my life when my mom passed away and my dad went bankrupt and ran away, one of my uncles said the most hurtful thing to me, blaming the death of my mom on me, the 17-year-old teenager at the time. It wasn’t nice what he said. But I have to make a conscious decision every day to love and forgive him. Not because I’m righteous and perfect, but simply because God loves me and forgives me every day. If He loves me that much, the least I can do is to love somebody else. If God forgives me for all of my sins when I become his enemy, the least I can do is to forgive my own enemies.