Love Your Enemies
Matthew 5:43

    In the Law of Moses, God commanded that the children of Israel love those whom were considered their neighbors but hate those considered their enemies.

Deuteronomy 7:1-4 GNB "YHWH your God will bring you into the land that you are going to occupy, and he will drive many nations out of it. As you advance, he will drive out seven nations larger and more powerful than you: the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 2 When YHWH your God places these people in your power and you defeat them, you must put them all to death. Do not make an alliance with them or show them any mercy. 3 Do not marry any of them, and do not let your children marry any of them, 4 because then they would lead your children away from YHWH to worship other gods. If that happens, YHWH will be angry with you and destroy you at once.

    Now however, it has been granted by YHWH that to anyone in among all the nations (provided he or she fear God and obey his Word), be granted the promise given to Abraham, and therefore be considered among Abraham's seed.

Leviticus 19:18 GNB Do not take revenge on others or continue to hate them, but love your neighbors as you love yourself. I am the LORD.

Acts 10:34-35 GNB Peter began to speak: "I now realize that it is true that God treats everyone on the same basis. 35 Those who fear him and do what is right are acceptable to him, no matter what race they belong to.

Therefore, because anyone can have a part in the kingdom, we are to show love to all men, no matter what race, religion, or nationality, sexual orientation, or gender they may be. If anyone is not obeying God's commandments it is not up to us to force them to do so, all we can do is be good examples for them. As Christians we must follow the model Jesus Christ gave, closely. For how do we know if God, in some near future time, might cause their hearts to open to his righteous Word because of what we did?

Ecclesiastes 11:6 GNB Do your planting in the morning and in the evening, too. You never know whether it will all grow well or whether one planting will do better than the other.

Ezekiel 3:17-21 GNB "Mortal man," he said, "I am making you a lookout for the nation of Israel. You will pass on to them the warnings I give you. 18 If I announce that someone evil is going to die but you do not warn him to change his ways so that he can save his life, he will die, still a sinner, but I will hold you responsible for his death. 19 If you do warn an evil man and he doesn't stop sinning, he will die, still a sinner, but your life will be spared. 20 "If someone truly good starts doing evil and I put him in a dangerous situation, he will die if you do not warn him. He will die because of his sins---I will not remember the good he did---and I will hold you responsible for his death. 21 If you do warn a good man not to sin and he listens to you and doesn't sin, he will stay alive, and your life will also be spared."

On the other hand, if our conduct is that of a hypocrite, we might be one who drives them away from the truth. We want to avoid hypocritical behavior because the judgment going to the hypocrites is not good:

Matthew 18:6 GNB "If anyone should cause one of these little ones to lose his faith in me, it would be better for that person to have a large millstone tied around his neck and be drowned in the deep sea.

Finally we must ask ourselves what reward would it be to us if God made things easy, if we only love those who love us? What reward do we have then? We have done nothing. For even the wicked ones love those whom are their own. But because we are to be considered sons of God, in union with Christ, we are to be perfect, as our Father in heaven is perfect.