Jesus reveals two principles by which the whole world exists and functions. This is the religious-moral code of this world, absorbing all worldview systems, including atheism. Many were born and raised under its influence.
Perfectly predictable and understandable: love your own and hate the stranger. There are ours and not ours. We love our own and hate the others. And so it has always been.
This is the logic of the entire world and its system. But before we turn to Christ's glorious commandment, I wish to clarify something important.
"...hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies." Those born again—citizens of heaven possessing a completely different mindset—are called to disrupt the habitual course of relations by loving even their enemies.
And here arrives a most interesting moment for us. Who is the enemy? Whom should we call enemy? One who doesn't believe the Gospel? One who opposes God's will and His purposes? One who has hurt me? One who caused me pain? I notice people fear to define it!
And today many Christians are deceived precisely in this!
Today there is war in my country, and I HAVE a very clear understanding of who my enemy is. It is not the heretic, not the LGBT person, not someone of another denomination, but the murderer Putin and his army of notorious cutthroats and killer boys.
Today many Christians condemn me for such a statement. One sister even wrote: "Kalinsky, you are to me as one who has fornicated, and I trusted you." Another: "You have thereby ruined your reputation as a minister..."
In truth, I would be fornicating and ruining my ministerial reputation if I called black white and white black. And it is precisely such fornication we must avoid. Of course, we have an enemy—the devil—but it is not him we must forgive.
The kingdom of lies, built by Goebbels, has seduced masses of Christians raising their hands before the portrait of evil. Today the kingdom of lies and propaganda has intoxicated many of my brothers and sisters in Russia, crying out during the war: serves you right! But intoxicated Christians are not our enemies. We love them despite their blindness and the pain they inflict upon us in bitter tones and attacks.
The definition of the enemy and the harm inflicted is extremely important for us, for genuine growth in grace and the manifestation of love. I felt the fiercest rage seeing murders in my land committed by uninvited guests. Our enemies.
And when Christians write to me, sitting on soft couches: "Pastor, you are too emotional in your words!"—I feel ever more sharply the reek of biblical Phariseeism. And I have an allergy to "sterile Christianity." Ask Corrie ten Boom what forgiveness cost her? What did she struggle with in her soul, seeing the vile enemy?
Sometimes it seems to me that many Christians have bookish or virtual enemies, and so their love, prayer, and forgiveness are equally so. A real enemy always causes us real and intense pain, which we are called to overcome.
We cannot abstract ourselves or escape into nirvana, but we must overcome the pain within us and bring it to Christ, so that from the heart we forgive, love, and grow in Him.
The Beauty of Christ's Offensive Love
