Matthew 5:43-45
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”

Though no one in the Old Testament ever said or wrote “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy,” many Jews of Jesus’ day believed it as if it were Scripture. And indeed, it seems instinctive, almost common sense, to hate those who hate you or who have done evil toward you.

But that is precisely the mindset Jesus is preaching against here. Not only should we not hate our enemies, we should pray for them, and even reach out to them in love. Sounds silly, in a worldly context–why bother loving and praying for enemies when they won’t even know or care? But God loves each of us, even those of us who commit evil acts, who say unrighteous things; God loves us no matter who we are, loves each of us even before we are saved, and only waits for each of us to admit Him to our hearts through accepting Christ as our Savior. We were all unrighteous at some point in our lives, and yet He still loved us even then.

When we love our enemies and pray for them, we are acting in accord with God instead of man; that is Jesus’ point. It is a lesson we could all use a refresher course on occasionally, because the world teaches us much about the “usefulness” of revenge and the “might” of hatred. It takes a strong person–a strong Christian–to react to all this negativity with the serene love Jesus advocates in this passage.