Love Your Enemies by L. A. Cartwright

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 24, 1871

“Love Your Enemies.”

By L. A. Cartwright

No greater test of one’s spiritual condition was ever given, than these few words of the Saviour, “Love your enemies.” It is not enough that we do not hate our enemies, and refrain from returning their evil; not enough that we sometimes show them a favor, with a secret pleasure and satisfaction at their feelings of annoyance, or the “coals of fire on their heads.” This is not love, that spontaneous desire for the well-being of others. Jesus was a perfect example of love in that he “died for the ungodly,” poured out his life for a world of rebels. All through his ministry here on earth, love shone in every act and word. Even when he denounced the severest judgments, his great love was manifest to all, proving that he was not willing that any “should perish,” but “rather that they would turn and live.” And in the hour of his greatest anguish, amid the cruel scoffs and jeers of his murderers, he could still say, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” Oh, for the mind and spirit of Christ! Lord, help us to be like him.

L. A. CARTWRIGHT.