But if you shall indeed obey His voice, and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies, and a foe to your foes.
Exo23:22
Today I found a different definition for enemies from Bible.
Enemies are the messengers God send to you. Whatever form they take – human beings, sickness, tsunami, flood, failure, unemployment, mental depression, drought, division, rebellion etc. they are sent by God to convey a message. Without receiving the message, if you start reacting with them, you will fail. It may take another form too.
Let us know more from Bible.
When the Lord created Adam and Eve, everything was in harmony with them. The climate, nature, everything was favourable. After sin, everything turned against them. Hatred, betrayal, accusing, lie, fear, hiding, etc. came along with sin.
When we obey God and His commandments, God will fight with our enemies and everything will be harmonious in our life.
Whereas, when we disobey God and violate His commandments, God will raise enemies against us. In other words, God Himself will become enemy to us.
And God’s anger was kindled because he went. And the Angel of Jehovah stood in the way as an enemy against him. ….
Num22:22
Jesus Christ came to this earth to remove the eternal wrath of God towards humanity and to reconcile us with the Father. He showed us an example how to make God relent from His anger.
And Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.
Luke 23:34
The Lord Heavenly Father heard His prayer, answered it and reconciled the whole humanity to Himself.
We come to the conclusion that we can make friends out of our enemies. It is the will of God too. We have an important role to play in making our enemies get reconciled with God. How we can practice it?
Let us realise that the enemy has been sent to us by the Lord.
- Find out the message of God the enemy is bringing to you.
- Accept it and humble yourselves. Confess your sins.
- Make a sincere effort to search yourself and find out where you have gone wrong. Ask Holy Spirit’s help.
The enemy in rage would have accused you of something. Perhaps that can be the message.
Suppose you have given money as loan to somebody. He cheated you and did not repay you. He becomes your enemy.
What is the message God is giving here.
- May be he is willing to repay but he does not have. God did not allow him to repay to you. It can be an incident of God Himself make you pay back your ancestors have stolen from others. In that case you should not get angry with your enemy but should be thankful for helping you to come out of the curse.
- May be, it is a promotion test for you from God, to test you whether you comply with the verse,
Give to everyone who asks of you, and from him who takes away your goods, do not ask them again.
Luke 6:30
Sr. Angelica AOJ