Who’s on your enemy list?  You know what I mean.  Whose names are listed in your thinking when it comes to hate?  Is the word hate too strong?

You perhaps don’t even know you hate them, but when you see them, hear their name, watch their actions you feel the rage well up within you.  Are you wondering what I mean, are you thinking: not me, I don’t hate anyone.

Then let me ask you a couple of questions.  What do you feel when you think about the men and women who planned the deaths of those who died in the attacks on Israel October 7, 2024?  What about the men, women, children who are willing to strap explosives to their bodies and walk into a crowd of innocent people and trigger a switch, destroying lives? Are they on your enemy list?

Does that seem too far away?  What about the names of those who are nightly in the news, in our own towns and cities who cause the crimes, the hurts of those who lives are devastated by theft, robbery or drug dealing.  Are they on your enemy list?

Still too far away?  Consider the people who work with, who you have simply drained you of patience, who given a choice, you would remove from your environment.  Maybe you don’t think you hate them, but you sure don’t love them! Maybe they are on your enemy list?

For many people, the target of their hate is strangely people that once they loved.  With the rate of divorce and domestic violence it is apparent that this is true.  The hands that once were clasped in a loving embrace form fists and take vengeful action.  Hate broils in words and thoughts that spill out into hurtful decisions.  Surely they are on your enemy list.

Don’t be bothered by the length of your enemy list.  The longer the better, the more intimate the names the more it will help.

Include the names of leaders of other nations or religious persuasions.  We need a long enemy list.  Anyone else need to be included?  Does it include your neighbours, your workmates, the person who got the promotion instead of you?

Now listen to the words of Jesus: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,”.  Love your enemies…pray for them.  That’s the command of Jesus as he teaches those who gathered around him.  It is counter culture for his listeners – they had very different thoughts and standards.  The listeners had grown up with the standard of loving neighbours and hating enemies.  We are familiar with that same standard.

Now a new standard; to love and to pray for those we hate.

So let’s get out the enemy list.  Start at the top and work your way down.  Let’s pray for each one.  What might happen?  The first thing I think that will happen is we will begin to see those individuals as human, with their own circumstance.  We will begin to see their hurts, their struggles.  We might begin to see the commonness of their existence to ours.  We can pray for their families and loved ones.  We can pray that they might know God’s love.  We pray that we might know God’s love and have it flow through our lives to those who share this journey on Terra Firma.

We pray that God might help us see that Jesus died for everyone.  He died for us, he died for those who do not understand God’s love.  He died for those on your enemy list and mine