How do I love my enemies?

This is one of the hardest things Jesus said. It is also one of the most commonly misunderstood — twisted into either a soft "be nice to mean people" or a brutal "pretend you do not feel what you feel." Neither is what he meant.

This page lays out what love your enemies actually means, what it does not mean, and how to actually do it when you have a real enemy in mind. You do not have to be religious to read it.

A few terms first

For readers without the background:

• Jesus of Nazareth was a Jewish religious teacher who lived in first-century Palestine. The Christian claim is that he was also God in human form. He was executed by the Roman government around 30 AD by a method called crucifixion.
• The cross is the Christian shorthand for that execution — the public Roman killing of Jesus around 30 AD.
• The gospels are four short biographies of his life — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John — within the New Testament (the second part of the Christian Bible).
• Paul was one of the earliest Christian writers; his letters make up a large portion of the New Testament.

A short, honest answer

Loving your enemies in the Christian sense is willing their actual good — praying for them, refusing to wish harm on them, treating them well when you have the chance — even while you feel the full weight of what they have done. It is not pretending you do not have enemies. It is not requiring you to feel warm toward them. It is not requiring you to keep exposing yourself to harm. It is a posture toward them, not a feeling about them.

What Jesus actually said

The passage that started this is from one of the gospel accounts. Jesus, in a long teaching often called the Sermon on the Mount, said: "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, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous."

This was, in his cultural context, an extreme thing to say. The expectation in the ancient world (and not just Jewish culture — most ancient cultures) was that love is for your tribe, not for outsiders. Hatred for genuine enemies was considered moral, even required. Jesus is upending the assumption.

In another gospel account, he expanded: "Do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you."

And in his most famous personal example: from the cross, while being executed, he prayed about the people executing him — "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."

What loving enemies is not

This is where most of the confusion lives. Worth being clear about what Jesus did not mean:

It is not pretending you have no enemies. Jesus assumed you would. The command starts from the premise that you have real enemies — people who have actually hurt you, who actually want bad things for you, who actually oppose you. Pretending you do not have those people is not what he is asking.

It is not the same as feeling warm toward them. The Christian tradition has distinguished between love as a posture of the will (what you actively choose) and love as a feeling (an emotional state). Jesus is commanding the first. The second sometimes follows, but is not required for the first to be real.

It is not the same as approving of what they did. You can love an enemy and still believe what they did was wrong. The Christian tradition has held both these together — including when Jesus himself loved people while clearly naming their evil.

It is not the same as becoming their friend. Love does not require friendship. You can love someone in the Christian sense and have no relationship with them at all.

It is not the same as letting them harm you indefinitely. Self-protection is biblically permitted. Defending the vulnerable is biblically required. Loving your enemies does not mean making yourself a permanent target.

It is not the same as silence about injustice. Some of the strongest language in the New Testament is aimed at oppressors. Speaking truth about evil is consistent with loving the people who do it.

It is not the same as taking revenge into your own hands. Paul, in a letter to Christians in Rome: "Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath… 'It is mine to avenge; I will repay,' says the Lord." Loving your enemies includes refusing to be their judge. It does not include letting them off the hook for what they did — that part you hand to God.

What loving enemies is

A few specific things, from the New Testament:

1. Willing their actual good. Wanting them to be transformed, restored, made right with God — not wanting them destroyed. Even if you cannot feel this, the Christian tradition has held that you can choose to will it.

2. Praying for them. Jesus said it explicitly: "pray for those who persecute you." Many Christians find that praying for an enemy, even through gritted teeth, eventually shifts something internal. You do not have to mean it perfectly the first time. The act of praying is itself the practice.

3. Refusing to wish them harm. Not the same as wishing them well. Wishing them no harm — refusing to fantasize about their suffering, refusing to celebrate their pain — is a starting point.

4. Treating them well when you have the chance. Paul, in the same letter, quoting an Old Testament proverb: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head." The burning coals image is debated, but the basic move is clear: returning good for evil is the Christian instruction.

5. Refusing to be controlled by them. Hatred is, ironically, a way of letting your enemy live in your head rent-free. The Christian instruction is to release them — not because they deserve it, but because your own freedom depends on it.

A simple practice

This is well-trodden in Christian spiritual writing. If you have an enemy specifically in mind:

Pray for them by name, daily, for a season. Even one sentence. "God, do something good for [name] today. Help them, soften them, draw them to you." This will feel wrong at first. Keep doing it. Many Christians have reported that the feeling underneath shifted significantly over weeks or months.

Refuse fantasies of their suffering. When the wish-they-would-pay thought comes up, notice it. Hand it to God ("I am wishing them harm; please take that from me"). Do not feed it.

Look for one opportunity to do good to them. A kind word, a fair representation, a generous gesture. Not a grand performance. One thing. Then another.

Be honest with God about how hard this is. The Bible's prayer book — the Psalms — is full of people pouring out anger at their enemies in prayer to God. That is in the canon. You are allowed to feel what you feel. The instruction is to bring it to God rather than act it out.

Forgive in your heart, separately from any decision about reconciliation. (See How do I forgive someone who hurt me? for more on this.)

What about people who are evil

Some enemies are not just people who have wronged you personally. Some are people doing real, ongoing evil — abusers, exploiters, oppressors. Does love your enemies require softness toward them?

The Christian answer is: love them as humans (meaning, will their good, pray for their repentance, refuse to wish them merely destruction) — but this does not require refusing to oppose what they are doing. Some of the most consequential Christians in history have actively opposed evil — abolitionists, anti-totalitarian dissenters, civil rights leaders — while also praying for the people doing the evil. The two are not in tension. Active opposition to evil and prayer for the evildoer are both forms of love.

What about national or political enemies

This is one of the most-flattened applications of this teaching. Christians have often loved their own tribe and hated the people their tribe was at war with — political opponents, ethnic groups, religious outsiders, immigrants. This is a failure against Jesus' direct instruction. The command to love enemies is the broadest application of love in the Christian moral vocabulary. It applies to the people your culture trains you to despise.

What if you cannot

If you cannot, you are not alone. Many serious Christians have wrestled with this for years. The Christian tradition has historically held that willingness to be willing is the beginning of the work. If you can pray "God, help me want to love them," you are inside the practice.

If the harm done to you was severe, the work of loving the person who did it often takes years and almost always benefits from outside help — a trauma-informed therapist, a mature spiritual friend, both. Pretending you have done the work when you have not is not what Jesus asked.

What about right now

If you have someone specific in mind and want to talk through how to actually do this — not in theory but in practice — our chat is free, private, and in your language. You start it; you end it whenever you want.

Where this comes from in the Bible

• Matthew 5:43–48 — Jesus' original love your enemies teaching
• Luke 6:27–36 — the parallel account, with additional detail
• Romans 12:14–21 — Paul's application
• 1 Peter 3:9 — "do not repay evil with evil"
• Proverbs 25:21–22 — "if your enemy is hungry, feed him"
• Luke 23:34 — Jesus' own enemy-prayer from the cross