Love Your Enemies - Luke 6:27-36

Being a conqueror is not good enough --- because your conquered enemy is still seeking for opportunity to rise up and beat you. In ancient China, during the warring period, we had the defeated and captured Yue king(Gou Qian) scheming all he could and later defeated his conqueror the King of Wu (Fu-Chai). What then is the better way? Be more than a conqueror. What is that? That is to convert an enemy to a friend. In China's three-kingdom period, we had the famous story of 诸葛亮7擒孟达 Zhuge Liang captured and released Meng Da seven times. Finally, he accepted the rulership of Zhuge Liang and they had peace for a long time allowing Zhu to focus his attack on Wei.

How to convert an enemy to a friend? The answer is love and doing things that surprised him such as going the extra mile, blessing for a curse, giving when asked, etc. Jesus shows us.

Lessons:

• Proactive: Changing others begins with us changing our attitudes and behavior towards them.
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• The way to impress them is to do the unexpected, going beyond the standard requirements. Typically is doing the opposite, blessing in return for curses, giving more than requested.
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3 Ways of Respond when people are bad to you:

• 1. react as their actions
  • Matthew 5:38b 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. '

    This will result in endless conflicts

• 2. Act according to the demands of the Laws or Rightful practice
  • Confucius Analect 14:34 或曰‘以德報怨、何如,’ Someone asked, "What about repaying injury with kindness?"子曰‘何以報德、以直報怨、以德報德’ Confucius said, "Then how do you repay kindness? Repay injury with straightness (justice) and kindness for kindness".:
• 3. respond with love
  • Mat 5:39 But I say to you, Do not resist one who is evil. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also"
  • Loa Zi DaoDeJing 79：和大怨，必有余怨；报怨以德，安可以为善； "When dealing with great resentment, there will inevitably be residual resentment; to repay resentment with kindness, how can one not be virtuous?"
  • Romans 8:37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

    What is more than conquerors? It is to convert the enemy to become a friend. How is it done? By love as shown by Jesus!