(He) Love(s) Your Enemies

Do you struggle to get along with people whom you do not like?

It's because you are trying to love them.

"Perfect love casts out fear." (1 John 4: 18)

This "perfect love" is not our love, but His, and it starts with His love for us:

"Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." (1 John 4: 10)

Love is not a feeling that we have to work up or wait for. Love is not an action which we initiate.
This love flows through us to the whole world, because we have now become like Him:

"But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

"Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1: 12-13)

This love flows in us by the Holy Spirit:

"And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us." (Romans 5: 5)

He is not just example, but the essential power that moves us to love:
"We love him because He first loved us." (1 John 4: 19)

If you struggle or strain to love certain people, then you are still under law, trying to keep His commandments, including the greatest, which is to love our neighbor as ourselves, and love the Lord our God with all that we have (  ) None of us can do that.

 Only God can love the way that we are called to love, and it is Himself and His Love which is outlined for us in 1 Corinthians 13:

"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal." (1 Corinthians 13: 1)

In the first verse as well as throughout the chapter, Paul emphasizes "having" charity, not doing it. If we want to love, we must first receive the growing revelation of God's love for us. By meditating and receiving a greater awareness of His never-ending, ever-preserving love for us, a love which nothing can separate from us (Romans 8: 38-39), we then receive the grace to love others, resting in His power instead of striving in our strength.