When Enemies Become Family

The cross did not merely forgive enemies. It transformed them into friends.

The most powerful message and experiential reality within the cross of Christ is this: enemies became friends.

When you put that into the context of real relationships on the earth, you realize just how much of a miracle this is. When there is real division, disagreement, pain, offense, and distance between people, the idea that intimate friendship filled with joy, laughter, affection, and camaraderie could ever exist can feel nearly impossible.

Yet this is exactly what happened between us and God.

We were enemies of God. We were divided from Him. We were against Him. We were not walking with Him, loving Him, surrendering to Him, or living in friendship with Him. But the power of the cross took enemies and created friendship.

Let me be clear. Not acquaintances. Friends.

This is the power of the cross.

And the deepest evidence of the cross is not theological agreement, but sacrificial love.

If we want to evaluate whether or not we are truly living in the power of the cross, we must honestly answer this question: Are we surrendering to the power of the cross in our relationships?

Are we willing to allow the cross to intersect with our enemies? Are we willing to believe that the supernatural power of the cross can produce friendship with those we currently have tension, frustration, and division with?

I remember seasons in my own life where I justified distance in my heart because I felt right. I convinced myself wisdom meant separation, when in reality pride was keeping me from surrendering to the cross. I wanted agreement more than humility. I wanted validation more than reconciliation.

But the cross destroys everything we use to justify distance.

The cross was inviting me not merely to tolerate people, but to love them.

And what once felt impossible slowly became beautiful as the Spirit of God softened what pride had hardened.

Let me be clear. I am not mainly speaking this message to the world. I am speaking it to the church.

At times, the world seems better at being friends with those they disagree with than we are. One of the saddest realities on the earth is that people in the world can disagree on significant things and still treat each other with more honor than many within the body of Christ treat one another.

Somewhere along the way, many believers became more passionate about being right than becoming loving, and heaven grieves what division has done to the testimony of Jesus.

One of the primary reasons friendship does not exist within much of the church is because our unity rests on preferences and opinions rather than on the cross.

The church was never meant to be united by opinion, but by crucifixion.

Paul says in Galatians 5 that there is an offense to the cross. In context, Paul is not primarily confronting the lawless. He is confronting the religious. The truth is, the offense of the cross still exists within the hearts and minds of the religious far more than it does in the lawless.

The religious are offended by the cross because they would rather live with a sense of righteousness and oneness based upon the efforts of the flesh, specific opinions, and rules rooted in the law.

At the first tree in the garden, man chose the knowledge of good and evil over love and communion with God. At the second tree called Calvary, Jesus restored what sin fractured. The cross forever declares that love is greater than being right.

But the offense of the cross is that nothing else gets to be supreme.

Paul says in Galatians 6:14, “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Not our preferences. Not our opinions. Not our traditions. Not our theological camps. Not our personal convictions elevated above love. Nothing but the cross.

One of the clearest signs we are no longer centered in the cross is when we feel more justified in our opinions than broken over our lack of love.

The cross does not require uniformity of opinion to produce unity of heart. Jesus did not die to create clones. He died to create family.

This means all the things we often make central to unity, oneness, and friendship in the church are nothing if they are not surrendered to the cross.

The church has often become more committed to tribal loyalties than grace filled affection.

Jesus did not preach friendship toward enemies from a distance. He demonstrated it while nails pierced His hands. As men mocked Him, spit on Him, rejected Him, and crucified Him, heaven’s response was, “Father, forgive them.”

Jesus washed the feet of the very man who would betray Him. Even at the table of betrayal, love remained.

Calvary is where enemies lose the right to remain enemies.

“He Himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the dividing wall of hostility.” — Ephesians 2:14

The only reason separation remains in our lives with anyone is because we are trying to find oneness in something outside of the cross. Where the cross is truly present, only one outcome is possible: friendship, unity, camaraderie, and intimacy.

You cannot cling to the cross while clinging to offense.

This does not eliminate wisdom, discernment, or healthy boundaries. But it does eliminate hatred, superiority, bitterness, and the refusal to love.

The cross produces the fruit of what Jesus prayed for. He prayed that we would be one with one another in the same way He is one with the Father.

And Jesus said it would be through this oneness that the world would know Him.

Our religious preferences and opinions will never win people to the kingdom, but our oneness through the cross of Christ will.

Many are offended by the simplicity of this message. That is why we continue to remain divided across the body of Christ. We become enemies with the very people Jesus came to make our friends.

There are relationships that feel too fractured, too painful, too divided to heal. Some carry betrayal. Others carry disappointment, misunderstanding, church hurt, rejection, or years of bitterness. But the cross specializes in impossible reconciliation.

This kind of love is impossible through human effort. Only the Spirit of God can empower people to love beyond offense, pride, and pain.

If God could make enemies into sons and daughters, He can do more than we imagine within our broken relationships.

So this speaks a question to every one of us.

Who in your life do you currently have division and tension with?

This cannot stay as a beautiful idea we admire while continuing to live divided.

For some, surrendering to the cross may mean making a phone call, sending a text, praying for someone you resent, asking forgiveness, or choosing to bless someone you have silently judged.

What if the very relationship you have justified remaining broken is the exact place Jesus wants to reveal the power of His cross?

Are you willing to bring the cross into the center of that relationship? Are you willing to believe the cross can make you friends with someone you currently experience as an enemy?

Would you be courageous enough to lay down your prideful preferences and opinions and wholeheartedly embrace what may seem foolish?

The cross of Christ.

Can you imagine a church where people of different backgrounds, convictions, personalities, and preferences loved each other so deeply that the world could not explain it naturally?

That is the testimony the cross produces.

A supernatural family formed not by sameness, but by surrender.

Because the greatest miracle of the cross is not merely that sinners are forgiven, but that enemies sit at the same table as family, laughing together, weeping together, worshiping together, and loving one another as Christ has loved them.