Overcome

Loving people who love you is pretty easy, right? It's nice to care for people who you know reciprocate those feelings. But what about loving people who hate you? It's an aspect of love we often skip over. It's hard, and quite frankly, not very fun, so we ignore it. Yeah, maybe we learn to live peacefully with those who hate us, simply as acquaintances, or ignoring them all together. Lately though, I've been realizing that is so far from what God wants from us. We all know the saying from the Bible, "love your enemies..." yada yada yada. We've heard it a thousand times, but are we obeying it? 
Romans 5:10 basically says that while we hated God, he died for us to reconcile us to God. We were his enemies, and he chose to love us. We're supposed to be like Christ in all we do. Who hates you that you need to choose to love? One of my favorite commands from the Bible is "if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good" (Romans 12:20-21). It is extremely hard to do, but in doing so, your own heart begins to change to be more like that of Christ. Give it a try. Love, deeply love those who hurt you. It will change you, and who knows, it might even change them.