When Jesus said to “Love Your Enemies”, it means to love
them, and understand why they might be the way they are based on their own childhood,
problems in life and ways they have learnt to survive.
While Christians are commanded to love
everyone it doesn’t mean a Christian needs to accept their behaviour. For example if a man is beating on his girlfriend
or wife, a Christian will continue to love the man, understanding that he is
where he is and acts the ways he does based on his own childhood and ways he
has learnt to survive during life. It’s
possible for instance he learned that behaviour from witnessing his father beat
his mother, or his father beating him. He
has learnt the behaviour from somewhere, he didn’t get it from God, he learnt
it. The man probably also knows it is
wrong but doesn’t want to acknowledge it or deal with it. A Christian therefore doesn’t need to
tolerate the behaviour to continue to love the person. God gives the Christian the strength and
knowledge to say “Enough is enough, your behaviour is unacceptable” and separate
themselves from the situation while doing their best to help the person learn
new acceptable behaviour.
A close
relationship with Jesus can help a person correct bad behaviour. Many that exhibit bad behaviour are typically
far from Christ and do not want to even know him on a personal level.
There
are many types of unacceptable behaviour including physical abuse, mental
abuse, selfishness, sexual immorality, bullying, drunkenness, hatred, deception,
lying, stealing etc. One thing a loving
Christian can do is give them a bible and or other good Christian books, tell
them that they love them and be there for them as a person when they are
willing to make a change. A Christian
cares about a person’s soul and knows that unacceptable behaviour requires to
be corrected to experience the joy of knowing God.
