September 22: Weekly Reading- Teaching on Loving Your Enemies; The Neighbor & Insight Post by Kim Feld

  -   September 22, 2025

Loving Our Enemies Reflects God’s Love: Jesus teaches that we are called to love not just those who love us, but also our enemies. This kind of love reflects the heart of God, who loves unconditionally, even when we don’t deserve it.

Monday Verse

The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning. Lamentations 3:22-23 (NLT)

Monday Questions

Who in my life do I find difficult to love? How can I demonstrate God’s unconditional love towards them?

Monday Insight Post
by Kim Feld

This week’s reading focuses on Jesus’ teaching about loving our enemies. To begin our reflection, I would like to share a prayer from the book “Liturgies for Wholeness.” I chose this prayer because it offers words and guidance for following Jesus’ call to love those who have wronged us. You may have heard the word liturgy used to describe specific elements of a church service. In using the word liturgy in their book, the authors are “referring to an original, pre-written prayer based on the comfort, truth, and wonder found in Scripture” (Elledge & Moore, 2024, p. XIV). If you would like to explore the passages the authors drew upon to form this prayer, please refer to Psalm 71:20-21, Isaiah 53:7-10, Joel 2:25-26, Matthew 5:38-48, Romans 12:19-21, and 1 Peter 5:10.

A Liturgy for Loving Your Enemies

Oh, Author of Love,
It is easy to love those who love us back, trusting in the safe and familiar,
showing kindness to those who show kindness to us.
But You have shocked us with an opposite way – one that shows mercy to our enemies
and compassion to those who mistreat us.

How can this be, Lord, when the need for protection is so great and the cry for justice will not be silenced?

We cannot help but ask, Do You care that we have been harmed and cheated?

Do You care that we have been bewildered and humiliated
Look upon us now in our anger and disillusionment.
We hold our enemies up to You, and say, Look! Hear! Help!
Something must be done, and we trust You to do what is right.

In the meantime, we call to mind the mistreatment
that Christ endured at the hands of His own community.
We call to mind His sacrifice that made wrong things right,
His surrendered trust in the Father,
His acceptance of beating and mockery
with resurrection right around the corner.

May we follow Your example
And make space in our hearts for those who believe differently,
speak differently, see differently–
even if those differences offend us.
May we not villainize each other with our disagreements
but seek to understand before we are understood.

Oh Lord, we place the burden of justice upon Your shoulders
and leave the responsibility of revenge up to You.
Your heart is pure.
Your intentions are good.
Your love is fierce and sees all things clearly.

May we trust when You say You will repay
and believe when You say You will restore what has been taken away.
May we care for our enemies and meet their needs,
no longer fighting evil with evil,
but overpowering evil with good.

Amen

Kim Feld
Executive Director of Education and Outreach

Reference: Elledge, A., & Moore, A. (2024). Liturgies for wholeness: 60 prayers to encounter the depth, creativity, and friendship of God in ordinary moments. WaterBrook.

New Hope Church
Lorton, Virginia
www.newhope.org