So the better thing to do is to keep it in a corner where you will rarely go. You can then say, you are welcome, you can stay here, but I do not care a heck about what you say or do. Friends will support you in bad times, and enemies create those bad times. So your true enemy reveals who is your true friend. A friend in disguise, who is actually your enemy is called Frenemy. Enemies will have hatred but frenemies will have jealousy.
Frenemies are more dangerous because they can back-stab you with the access they have to your life. Jealousy is a stronger emotion than hatred. To win against the enemies, the clever thing is you should not play the game.
The game should not be played against your enemy because that mental energy will be wasted. You should be doing bigger things and become a true capitalist by producing and creating things, defeating your enemy becomes a side effect in that.
Their jealous cries reach to you making you laugh like a monster. Remember — Man should not fear to break any relationship where respect is lost. Fighting back is an old idea because winning the enemy is a momentary pleasure. You should have objectives and people will come and go on your journey. Because he lives to take revenge on them. I haven't touched this man - yet he has turned against me.
He's made himself my enemy. These are the words of the same godly king who wept when his murderous enemy, Saul, was slain in battle. David ripped his clothes in grief and called upon his friends to fast and pray, crying, "A giant of Israel has fallen.
Saul was a beautiful man of God. Send him to hell, fast. I'm on my knees always. How often we Christians are just like David. In our awful hurt and depression, we cry out self-righteously against our enemies, "Lord, don't let them live another day. Maybe you know someone who once told everybody he loved you.
But then, zing - that friend stabbed you in the back. He turned on you, and now he's out to hurt you. Perhaps you're separated or divorced from your mate, and now that spouse is knifing you. At one time you were convinced your mate loved and respected you. He stood by you at the altar, pledging to be yours for life. In the early days, his words were kind and loving, and you thought, "We're so close.
He's my dearest friend. But now he's forsaken you, perhaps for someone else. And he' reproaching you - spewing out smooth talk, while behind your back he tries to destroy you. You cry yourself to sleep, thinking, "I thought I knew him. How could he turn out this way? Maybe your enemy is a close, personal friend - perhaps a ministry associate or Christian coworker. At one time, this friend seemed godly and guileless, and you trusted him. But, suddenly, for no apparent reason, he turned on you.
You did nothing to cause his opposition to you. In fact, even as he reproaches you, you've remained friendly. Yet you can't believe the venom he spews about you to others - lies, hurtful words, manipulations. And the wound hurts even more deeply because he was your friend. Some readers might ask, "Do such things actually happen in the body of Christ? I don't see how this could be true of any Christian. I know a godly businessman who was invited to serve on the board of a Christian organization.
At his first meeting, he was shocked by the politics and infighting he witnessed. He called me up, bewildered, asking, "Is it this way in every ministry? I expect this kind of thing in business, but I'm discouraged by what I saw and heard among these men. They can't sit down in the Spirit of Christ and work out their disagreements.
I tell you, it's impossible to be truly holy without total obedience to our Lord's command to love one another. Jesus said, "The whole law is fulfilled in this - that you love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself" see Matthew Indeed, God tests our love for him by the love we show to our Christian brothers and sisters. You can sing God's praises in church, you can serve food to the homeless - but if you carry a single grudge against anyone, your love for God is in vain.
Scripture says if you harbor evil in your heart toward another, you're an outright hypocrite in God's eyes. Loving those who've wounded us is not an option, but a command.
You may protest, "Lord, I'll serve you, praise you, worship you, sacrifice for you - but don't expect me to lay down this hurt. If you only understood the depths of pain I've been through, you wouldn't demand this of me. It's beyond my ability to do. No - it is within your ability to do. Jesus says he has given us all power over the enemy. His Holy Spirit empowers us to forgive, even when we've been deeply wounded. You see, as members of Christ's body, we're to react according to the directions given by our head, Jesus.
Think about it: not a single one of your fingers moves, nor an eyelid blinks, without being directed by your brain. So, if Christ is our head, then all of his members must move according to his thoughts.
And he has clearly expressed his thinking on this matter: "Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you" Ephesians Are you acting according to Christ's wisdom?
Or have you become your own head, independent of him? Have you forgiven your enemies in love, even as Jesus has forgiven you?
Or do you still hold a grudge, causing your sins to pile up against you? Often, God's command to love our enemies can seem like bitter, distasteful medicine. But, like the castor oil I had to swallow in my youth, it's medicine that heals. Many Christians aren't willing to take this medicine.
They see it expressed in scripture, but they rarely abide by it. They still feel justified in despising their enemies.
Yet Jesus states very clearly: "Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy.
But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you" Matthew Was Jesus contradicting the law here? Not at all. He was reversing the spirit of flesh that had entered the law. At that time, Jews loved only other Jews. A Jew wasn't to shake hands with a Gentile, or even allow his robe to swish against an outsider's clothing. Yet this wasn't the spirit of the law.
The law was holy, instructing, "If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink: for thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head, and the Lord shall reward thee" Proverbs Jesus also addressed the Old Testament law regarding hurts and injuries. He stated, "Ye have heard that it hath been said, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: but I say unto you, that ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also" Matthew Under the Mosaic law, anyone who caused an injury was to be compensated in like manner - hurt for hurt, smiting for smiting.
Yet this wasn't to be so under Christ's ministry of grace. Indeed, Jesus' command to love our neighbors was meant to include even our enemies. You may ask, "Are we supposed to love evil people - abortion doctors, unscrupulous politicians, militant homosexuals who claim Jesus was gay?
Doesn't the Bible tell us we're to cry out against sin and fiercely resist evildoers? But we are to resist these people's evil ways without hating their persons. And am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee? I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies" Psalm Yet, even David finally discovered the gracious spirit of the law. He learned it's possible to hate someone's evil without hating the person.
He wrote: "I hate the work of them that turn aside" Psalm Consider Jesus' example. He faced the combined evil of every significant power in his day - government officials, political heads, church leaders. All of these people made themselves Christ's enemies, railing at him maliciously. The outcome is well known. An additional danger of having no enemies is a splintering of the various institutions and individuals within a state.
Lacking the organizing principle that the clear presence of an enemy supplies, it becomes more difficult to harness the many actors inside a state toward a common purpose.
It is difficult to have a grand strategy for a state in any conditions, but perhaps more so in the absence of an enemy when institutional strategies pursued for their narrowly defined benefit and survival become predominant. The preferred bureaucratic option overshadows a larger strategic purpose of the various state institutions and branches. As institutional selfishness takes over, each organization within the state becomes less capable of coordination and of working together toward the common objective of providing security.
The orchestra becomes a cacophonous group of glory seeking players. Finally, the third broad benefit of having an enemy is, according to Plutarch, the ability to vent emotions. The enemy serves as a punching bag to release pent up passions that otherwise may create discord among friends. As with the previous arguments, this one can also be extended to the political life of a state.
Plutarch mentions an example of how the achievement of accord in domestic politics is illusory at best and conducive to even greater strife at worst. This logic applies also to foreign enemies. The absence of external enemies—or, worse, the naive belief that there are no enemies—is dangerous because it elevates the naturally discordant interests and agendas of the various leaders and political groupings inside the state.
The primary concern of the state is then fractured into the pursuit of the narrow interests of factions and individual leaders. It is preferable, Plutarch seems to suggest, to have an enemy so as to release these internal tensions, or at least to subdue them by focusing the attention and the resources of the polity away from itself.
Focusing on the differences of opinions or of worldviews is a luxury good that we pursue when no enemies exist—or when we think that there are no enemies because we see the world as a harmonious global community. The flip side of this last benefit in particular—but of all of them in general—is that enmity can generate hatred.
In part the risk is that hatred will prevent a more calculating posture, blinding us to the necessity of prudence. Hatred can lead to unnecessary conflicts with the enemy and to a certain strategic rigidity that does not allow for prudential changes, temporary realignments, or pauses.
More importantly, a long-standing enemy and the hatred this may engender is dangerous because it degrades us. Plutarch writes:. Moreover, knavery, deceit, and intrigue, which seem not bad or unjust when employed against an enemy, if once they find a lodgment, acquire a permanent tenure, and are hard to eject. The next thing is that men of themselves employ these against their friends through force of habit, unless they are on their guard against using them against their enemies.
In other words, we have to guard ourselves from a posture that is overly mistrustful, undermining the ability to develop and hold allies. Plutarch concludes his essay with brief advice on what to study in an enemy.
But by observing capabilities, we may miss the nature and the intent of the enemy; we focus on what he has as opposed to who he is. If the question is how to defeat the enemy—or whether the rival presents a clear and present danger—then, presumably, the study of capabilities increases in importance.
How we study the enemy depends therefore on the question we ask, and on the level of threat that we expect. The more menacing the enemy, the more important an assessment of his capabilities becomes. But Plutarch does not go this far. We spent the last few decades in a blissful insouciance of the enduring realities of international politics. The progressive power of globalization would inevitably turn enemies and rivals into friends and partners—and national sovereignty and citizenry would be elevated to a global community and global citizenry.
This belief was wrong, and we are slowly waking up to the fact that enemies, from China to Russia and Iran, have spent these years planning how to subvert the international order we built and maintained.
We have to compete with them, deter them from further aggressive moves, and preserve the liberty at home that gives us reason to oppose them.
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