It is easier to do good deeds for people who love you. But a sense of pride still creeps in. One gets proud of one’s good deeds. And one may think it will get a great reward from God.

Those good deeds one does for those who love you and will always love you back, but loving your enemies is the ultimate challenge because you love someone you does not love you, someone who is not on your side. Most of the time, one is loving those who already love him or her.

It entered my mind that as I did my good deeds today that my loving was exceptional and that God may reward me for my deeds. Then it entered my mind, what’s so exceptional about my deeds anyhow?

Jesus didn’t praise the person who loved those who loved him. He said it was a credit to a person for loving his enemies. So, when we really start loving our enemies, the enemies being those people who are not for us, we start getting closer to what Jesus teaches and commends.

It’s this utterly challenging teaching that I mostly fail at, but desire greatly, and must apply, in the small situations and the big ones. We mostly do what we should when we love those who love us. But we go beyond the limits when we love our enemies by doing good for them. And in doing this we are acting like Jesus when Jesus forgave his enemies.