Upside Down Kingdom: Love Without Asterisks

Love Without Asterisks: What Jesus Really Means When He Says Love Your Enemies

Most of us are comfortable with the idea of loving people who are easy to love. But what about the neighbor who returns your lawnmower with a bent blade? The coworker who got the promotion you deserved? The person who hurt you deeply and never apologized? Jesus has something to say about all of it, and it is not what our instincts want to hear.

Why We All Want a Loophole When It Comes to Loving Others

There is a deeply protected instinct in the human heart. We believe we should get to decide who we love. We want the ability to draw a line and say, "I will love this person, but not that one." It feels reasonable. It feels fair.

But God makes it clear: He decides who we are called to love. And He modeled it first. He could have walked away from us. He had every reason to. But He did not. He loved us anyway, and He is asking us to do the same for others.

What Does the Bible Actually Say About Loving Your Enemies?

In Matthew 5:43-48, Jesus addresses this directly. He says:

"You have heard that it was said, Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven. For he causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward will you have? Don't even the tax collectors do the same?" - Matthew 5:43-46 Christian Standard Bible (CSB)

The first part of verse 43, "love your neighbor," comes straight from Leviticus 19. Nobody argued with that. But the second part, "hate your enemy," was a cultural add-on. It was an asterisk. A loophole. And Jesus looked at that asterisk and said it has no place in His kingdom.

What Kind of Love Is Jesus Talking About?

The word Jesus uses here is agape. This is not a warm feeling. It is not the affection you feel for someone who makes your life easy. Agape is a chosen, covenant, self-giving love that operates completely independent of whether the other person deserves it.

Agape is a choice. It is an action. It is something we do, not something we feel.

C.S. Lewis put it this way: "Do not waste time bothering whether you love your neighbor. Act as if you did. As soon as we do this, we find one of the great secrets. When you behave as if you love someone, you will presently come to love them."

Just as coming to faith in Jesus Christ is a conscious decision that becomes a heart decision, loving our enemies works the same way. We make the choice, and over time, the heart follows.

How Paul Tells Us to Carry Out This Kind of Love

In Romans 12, Paul gets uncomfortably specific about what this love looks like in practice. He opens with three Greek words: "he agape anupocritos," which means love without hypocrisy. Love without a mask.

In the ancient world, the word for hypocrisy was tied to the theater. It described actors playing a character, performing a role that was not really who they were. Paul looks at the church and says: stop performing. Take off the mask. Do what God is actually calling you to do.

He then lays out what that looks like:

• Be devoted to one another in love and honor others above yourself (Romans 12:10)
• Bless those who persecute you and do not curse them (Romans 12:14)
• Rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn (Romans 12:15)
• Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position (Romans 12:16)
• Do not repay anyone evil for evil (Romans 12:17)
• As far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone (Romans 12:18)
• Do not take revenge, but leave room for God's wrath (Romans 12:19)

Is Rejoicing With Your Enemies Really That Hard?

Verse 15 deserves a closer look. "Rejoice with those who rejoice." That sounds simple until it is the person you cannot stand who just got the promotion, the recognition, or the blessing you were hoping for.

Jesus presses on this same nerve in Matthew 5. He points out that even the tax collectors, who were despised in that culture for exploiting and stealing from people, loved those who loved them back. That is not the standard He is calling us to. The gut-level test of the Kingdom is not how we treat our friends. It is how we treat the people we are not fond of.

Philip Yancey wrote something that has a way of staying with you: "Grace means there is nothing I can do to make God love me more and nothing I can do to make God love me less. It also means that God loves my enemies the exact same way."

If that truth does not move us toward loving our enemies, it is hard to know what will.

What About Revenge? Does God Really Ask Us to Let It Go?

This is where it gets hardest. Paul writes in Romans 12:19:

"Friends, do not avenge yourselves; instead, leave room for God's wrath, because it is written, Vengeance belongs to me; I will repay, says the Lord." - Romans 12:19 Christian Standard Bible (CSB)

Our natural instinct is to protect ourselves, to get even, to make sure justice is served on our terms. But God's word is clear: His justice will prevail. It may not look the way we want it to, and it may not come on our timeline. But God's justice always prevails, and He will handle what needs to be handled.

Proverbs adds another layer to this. If your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing so, you heap burning coals on his head. When we respond to hostility with genuine love and care, it does something that retaliation never could. It disarms the cycle entirely.

A Story That Shows What This Actually Looks Like

Corrie ten Boom told a story about a man named Thomas in Africa who loved Jesus deeply. His neighbor hated that about him and repeatedly set fire to the thatched roof of Thomas's home. Each time, Thomas would wake up and put the fire out before it consumed his house and endangered his family.

One night, sparks from Thomas's roof blew across the road and caught the neighbor's house on fire. Thomas finished putting out his own fire, then crossed the street and put out his neighbor's fire too. In the process, he severely burned his hands and arms.

That same night, Thomas attended a meeting where Corrie ten Boom was speaking. When she noticed his bandaged hands and heard the story, she asked how he felt about the neighbor being arrested and jailed. Thomas said it made him unhappy. Not because of what the neighbor had done, but because the neighbor was a talented man who would now be surrounded by hardened criminals.

With his arms raised and his hands still bandaged, Thomas prayed that God would release his neighbor from prison and change His life so that the two of them could reach their village for Jesus together.

The next day, Corrie spoke at the prison. The neighbor was the first one to come forward and give his life to Christ. When she told Thomas, he went dancing down the street because his enemy had become his partner in the gospel.

That is what agape love looks like when it is lived out.

What Does "Be Perfect as Your Father Is Perfect" Actually Mean?

Jesus closes this passage in Matthew 5:48 with a phrase that can feel overwhelming:

"Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." - Matthew 5:48 Christian Standard Bible (CSB)

The Greek word here is "teleios." In this context, it does not mean sinless. It means complete, mature, and wholly formed in the image of God the Father. And what does the Father do? He causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good. He sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. He does not treat people differently based on whether they are close to Him or far from Him.

That is the standard. Not perfection in the sense of never making a mistake, but completeness in the sense of loving the way the Father loves.

How the Early Church Changed the World Through Love, Not Retaliation

The history of the human race is a long argument against what God is asking us to do. Every war, every feud, every broken family, every divided church is evidence that revenge is the default setting of the human heart.

But history also shows what happens when the Kingdom breaks through. The early Church, under Roman persecution, did not retaliate. They served. They buried plague victims that Rome abandoned. They adopted infants that Roman culture discarded. Within three centuries, the most powerful empire in the world had been transformed from the inside out. Not by force, but by a love that made no human sense.

Paul understood this personally. He was the one doing the persecuting before grace interrupted his life. And yet the Church loved him. God pursued Him. That is why when Paul closes Romans 12, he does not offer a lengthy explanation. He offers one sentence:

"Do not be conquered by evil, but conquer evil with good." - Romans 12:21 Christian Standard Bible (CSB)

He does not say ignore evil. He does not say pretend nothing happened. He says conquer it. Overcome it. With good. That is an active, aggressive, intentional word. It implies effort and cost.

What Does Overcoming Evil With Good Look Like in Real Life?

It looks like sending a text to someone you did not want to reach out to. It looks like showing up for someone who has never shown up for you. It looks like refusing to add your voice to the pile when someone is being knocked down. It looks like praying, genuinely praying, for the person whose name makes your jaw tighten.

It looks like the cross. Because that is exactly what Jesus did:

"But God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." - Romans 5:8 Christian Standard Bible (CSB)

He loved us without asterisks. And He is not asking us to do something He has not already done. He is asking us to follow where He has already led.

Life Application

Loving your enemies is not a feeling you wait for. It is a decision you act on until the feeling follows. This week, take three concrete steps.

First, write down the name of the person who came to mind during this message. Not for anyone else to see, but as a reminder to yourself of who God is calling you to love.

Second, do one small thing for that person this week. Send a text, write a note, make a call, or show up in some way. It does not have to be a grand gesture. It just has to be real.

Third, pray for that person by name every day for seven days. Not a vague "bless them" prayer, but a specific prayer asking God to do for them what He has done for you.

Then watch what happens. Not necessarily in them, but in your own heart.

Ask yourself these questions as you go into the week:

• Is there a relationship in my life where I have been waiting to feel love before I act on it, and what would it look like to act first?
• Where am I allowing evil to win in a relationship or situation because I am holding onto the right to retaliate?
• Do I truly believe that God loves the person I am struggling to love just as much as He loves me, and how does that change the way I see them?

The Kingdom does not advance through retaliation. It advances through people who choose to love when every instinct says not to. That is the upside down way. That is the Kingdom way.