📅 Love your enemy – Daily Bible Reading

June 18, 2022

Today’s reading: 2 Samuel 1:11-12

Love your enemy

We read in 2 Samuel 1:11-12:

11 Therefore David took hold of his own clothes and tore them, and so did all the men who were with him. 12 And they mourned and wept and fasted until evening for Saul and for Jonathan his son, for the people of the LORD and for the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword.

David heard of the news about Saul’s death. For many of us, if we haven’t read the Bible before, we might think that David would rejoice over the death of Saul. In fact, he SHOULD rejoice if you are just human reasoning.

Think about it for a second: this was Saul, the same person who was jealous of David. He tried to kill him multiple times. Saul took away David’s possessions, family, friends, home, and even the best years of his life.

To make things worse, up to the death of Saul, it seems that he wasn’t repentant of all the trouble he had caused David.

Yet, when he learned about Saul’s death, what was his response? He mourned, wept, and fasted.

Instead of saying, “Finally, after about two decades, I can finally claim what’s rightfully mine,” David didn’t think of himself, but rather he mourned the death of Israel’s king.

This teaches us a lesson. For one, feeling hate, bitterness, and vengefulness are all something we choose for ourselves. Yes, they can all be the natural response to what people do to us, it is still our choice whether we become better or bitter.

For David, he chose to be better. He chose not to hate, but to love his “enemy.” He might even not have thought of Saul as his enemy even though all the people around him could see how Saul acted as an enemy to David.

David showed us what it means to love our enemies — to love the unlovable. We don’t rejoice over the loss of our enemies, but we must pray for them.

As Christians, let us live a life of love not just for our friends and families, but also for our enemies.

To learn more, please read, “Lessons from the Life of David: Defeating the GIANTS (Part 1).”


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