“Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve my life; you stretch out your hand against the wrath of my enemies, and your right hand delivers me.”
Psalm 138:7
“For wicked and deceitful mouths are opened against me, speaking against me with lying tongues. They encircle me with words of hate, and attack me without cause. In return for my love they accuse me, but I give myself to prayer. So they reward me evil for good, and hatred for my love.”
Psalm 109:2-5
“When a man’s ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.”
Proverbs 16:7
Not everyone is going to like you. This is an unavoidable fact of life. Some people will go so far as to hate you, and they are your enemies. They may not say outright that they are your enemies, most people never do. They allow their hate for you to lie dormant, waiting until they can spring up and destroy you in one maneuver. Or they think they can slowly destroy you over time, through minute attacks. These people must be avoided.
Many people outside the church will hate you because your righteousness is a spotlight on their immorality. Religion makes worldly people look bad and feel guilty or dirty about their own irreligious lifestyle. This causes them to badmouth you or attack your character. They will label your church as a cult and you as an extremist. This is to be expected. Also, do not make the mistake of thinking you are so great if worldly people hate and speak badly about you because our Christian forefathers had it much worse than we do.
Even worse than acquiring hatred from the outside world is the fact that many people in the church will hate us, even our own brethren.
We wear the name Christian, but that does not protect us from human nature. Not everyone is going to get along. People have egos. People have opinions and traditions that, if you speak against them, will cause that person to hate you. Human beings are still human beings even though they walk in a church building every Sunday in their best dress.
You must be an astute observer of human nature and the way in which humans behave. You must learn to read people and have an idea of what they may be thinking or planning. This requires vigilance. This requires awareness about the people around you. You must raise your resting level of consciousness and be aware of humans. There are multiple small wars going on at all times, many minuscule power struggles between people. These are the foundations of relationships and make up all of interpersonal communication. You must become proficient at communication and at reading these power struggles if you are to succeed in mitigating the amount of enemies you deal with.
Even if you can avoid human enemies, you will never be able to avoid spiritual enemies. Satan is the enemy. His angels are the enemy. Plan to crush them.
Mantra
Enemies are unavoidable, but loving action is a choice in my mind.
Application
We must love our enemies. Remember: Love has nothing to do with how you feel, and everything to do with how you act. You may dislike another person greatly, but you can still act lovingly towards that person. However, we must hate the devil and everything he stands for and tries to do. Satan worms his way into everything and he must be opposed at every front, he must be strategically defeated.
Be vigilant and aware of the human beings around you, be sensitive to their aura and the way they seem. As humans we have the ability to tell when other humans are “off”. Your instinct will be right more often than not. It is possible to tell most enemies simply from aura, other enemies who are skilled in acting and manipulation may be harder to detect. If you detect that someone may be vexed with you, you have a couple options.
1 – Approach the brother. Some personality types respond best to direct confrontation. You must go to them directly, clear the air and try to make it right. This must be done regardless of whether your own personality is comfortable with confrontation or not. Simply approach him and ask if you have offended them in any way. Press them until they tell you what is on their mind.
2 – Try to make it right through successive small actions. Other personality types are very uncomfortable with confrontation and will deny everything if you approach them about their feelings toward you.
(Remember: Others will operate on emotion, we ourselves must avoid this at all costs).
Take a few small, nice actions towards this person and see if this clears the air. If this fails, go to a close friend of your “enemy” and ask them if the individual has mentioned having problems with you. This person will know if their friend is truly your enemy, or if their displeasure is targeted at someone or something else. Non-confrontational individuals are very likely to confide in a close friend, but tell nothing to everyone else they know. You must be strategic in how you handle this individual.
3 – There are some enemies who are simply trying to damage the church. They sow division and engage in small interpersonal wars. To defeat these enemies, you need the masses on your side. You cannot defeat an enemy like this unless the church agrees that he is an enemy. You need evidence that he is sowing discord among the brethren or engaging in warfare. Take the evidence to the elders of the church. If the elders will not listen, slowly acquire support from the rest of the church until you can approach the elders again with the support of the people. A divisive enemy must be removed from the church or he will destroy it.
Enemies in the spiritual realm must be found and annihilated.
You cannot see these enemies, but you can feel their effects on your life (Ephesians 6:10-12). You must be aware of these effects if you are to detect the presence of evil. This philosophy borders on mysticism and speculates about the whereabouts and activities of the good and evil spiritual realms. If you believe in the presence of angels and demons, this is where they would be active. If not, then you almost certainly believe that the devil is responsible for all the evil in your life. You must be aware of him and keep him out of your home and mind. You are at war with the devil and his army, so gird your loins, fortify the fortress of your mind and be a man.
Eliminate every access point the devil has in your home. Barricade points where he can worm his way in. this means setting up filtering software on all computers, televisions and phones. Do not even allow the microscopic spores of evil to settle in your mind. By removing the enemy’s access points, you have taken the spiritual high ground and are well on your way to keeping the enemy at bay.
Even after fortifying your home, you must be “on patrol”, constantly monitoring the fort for other ways the devil is attacking you. Applied knowledge is power, so always have intelligence on everything that goes on in your home.
Conduct Yourselves Like Men.
