Going the Extra Mile with Your Enemy

Have you ever wondered why Jesus said that we should turn the other cheek, go the extra mile, love our enemies, and pray for those who persecute us?

The Old Testament says, “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” (Leviticus 24:20). That response feels natural to us, and it also seems just. Yet Jesus calls us to something far deeper. He commands us not to resist the one who is evil, but instead to overcome evil with kindness, mercy, and love.

Jesus says in Matthew 5 that we are to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us so that we may be children of our Father in heaven. God shows kindness to both the good and the evil. He causes the sun to rise on the just and the unjust alike. Then Jesus says, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

I think loving our enemies and praying for them is part of what it means to become children of our Heavenly Father, who is loving and kind toward all people. And that is exactly what the perfect Son, Jesus Christ, did for us.

Jesus loved us and demonstrated His love for us while we were still His enemies by dying for us. He was struck for our sins, and yet He prayed for those who persecuted Him. Many leaders say profound and weighty things, but their lives do not reflect their words. Jesus, however, led by doing exactly what He asks us to do.

When He tells us to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect, He is not merely giving us an impossible command. He is revealing the very heart of God through His own life, death, and resurrection.

I think becoming children of God and growing into that perfection comes through continually reminding ourselves of the Gospel — that Christ loved and died for us while we were His enemies, and that He still intercedes for us even now.

His love and constant intercession are slowly chipping away at our stony, obstinate, proud, selfish, and unyielding hearts — hearts around which we have built fortresses and strongholds to protect ourselves. Yet those very ways of self-preservation often stop us from experiencing the life God intended for us to live: a life like little children, quick to forgive and quick to love.

I am not there yet. In fact, the law is still very dominant within me. But just as the Gospel did not end at the cross, but continued in the resurrection, my hope is that the love of our risen Lord would reign in our hearts.

I pray that the Spirit would have dominion over me and over all of us, and that through Jesus’ unrelenting intercession, the walls around our hearts would collapse like the walls of Jericho. May His love come flooding in, leading us into love and prayer even for our enemies. And may our stony hearts continue to melt through coals of kindness and love, empowered by the Holy Spirit, so that many may become true children of God.

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