God shows us how to love our enemies

We read these verses today in the One Year Bible reading:

1 KINGS 8:1-66
ACTS 7:51-8:13
PSALM 129:1-8
PROVERBS 17:1

In Acts, we see a man named Saul who is going from house to house arresting Christians and throwing them in prison. He is clearly an enemy of God, since He's fighting directly against what God is doing in the church He just established.

So what does God do? Strike Saul down? No. Instead, God does exactly what He teaches us to do: He loves His enemy. He gets Saul's attention by knocking him off his horse and blinding him (this would be called tough love) and then He converts him into the apostle Paul, who wrote much of the New Testament and was responsible for spreading the faith throughout most of the known world.

Loving your enemy can have powerful consequences. How can we love our enemies today? (hint : praying for them is a great start!)

God, thanks for demonstrating the practice of loving our enemies. Help us follow Your example.