«Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven». Matthew 5:44, 45, NW
DETER MILLER worked as a pastor in Ephrata, a city in the state of Pennsylvania, in the United States, at the time when George Washington was the countrys president. Also living in that city was Michael Wittman, a bitter enemy of Pastor Miller’s. Wittman frequently crossed paths with Miller and did whatever he could to humiliate that servant of Christ. Those were tumultuous time, and Wittman was accused of treason and later sentenced to death. Wasn’t that good news for Pastor Miller? No, it wasn’t.
Miller went to President George Washington, who was a good friend of his, and asked him to set Wittman free. The president kindly explained he could not pardon his friend. Then Miller replied, «Friend? He’s not my friend, he’s my worst enemy.» Surprised Miller had walked seventy miles to ask him to forgive his enemy’s life, President Washington decided to sign the reprieve and pardon Wittman.
Pastor Miller took Jesus’s «but I say to you» seriously. In the Gospel of Matthew, the Lord presented a series of antitheses and this is one of them: «You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven» (Matthew 5:43-45). The first part of verse 43, «love your neighbor as yourself,» is in the Scriptures, in Leviticus 19:18; but the second, «hate your enemy,» had been added to give a human propensity the category of being divine. In the fifth century BC, Lysias, an Athenian, said, «It is ordained that one should harm enemies and help friends.
Jesus adds a but I say to you to our natural tendency to hate our enemies, and proposes something that defies our logic: We are to love those who seek to harm us, those who reject us, those who humiliate us, those who consider us their enemies, and those we consider to be our enemies.
Loving them means respecting them, accepting them, valuing them, and treating them well; in doing so, we show we are children of our heavenly Father. The word «enemy» should not be in our vocabulary.
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Taken from: Devotional Readings for Adults 2023
“I AM WITH YOU”
From: J. VLADIMIR POLANCO
Collaborators: Lorina Maya & Avineyda Hernández
