Sunday, January 31, 2021

Friends and Enemies

There are different meanings to "enemy". Someone can be opposed to your interests or well-being. They can be on the opposite side of the war between human faction and human faction, or between God and his enemies. Certainly that's a form of enmity. A person can be bad for you and partly intend the harm they cause. That's also a form of enmity.

Are you their enemy? Not necessarily. But still, are they your enemy? They may be an enemy of you, but you don't have to be an enemy of them.

Somehow it's possible to look at someone as not being your enemy, even if they are dangerous, untrustworthy, clearly intending evil for you. They are your enemy, and it is wise to understand that, but at the same time, and in a different sense, you can see them as not being your enemy.

There's a connection between seeing someone as an enemy to you, and you being an enemy to them. Who is a person, essentially? Just a person, no more or less. Accidentally, they may be hellbent on contending for their own side.

(We have to be careful how we see evil.)

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Not everyone who likes you is your friend. But liking helps. Liking draws people closer to each other. Whether they choose to really become friends at that distance, may or may not occur.

A friend is someone who is genuinely on your side. Often, it's better to not be on someone else's side at all than to falsely be on their side.

Perhaps you don't share all of your life with a friend. You put your differences of opinion outside the friendship, because you must each be on a different side of a question, and you wish to remain on the side of your friend in the areas where you do overlap. Do you respect your friend's differing point of view? You might not be able to respect it if you think it's evil.

You don't have to make friends out of everyone. Jesus commands us to love our enemies.

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