This is somewhat tongue in cheek and a bit whimsical, but it got me wondering. If the Devil
is one of our enemies, and we are called to love our enemies, then are we
called to love the Devil, despite hating what he does and who he is? Some
humans are awful, but we are encouraged to hate the sins but love the sinner.
Should we, then, hate the sins of the Devil but love him? I don’t know. We are
told in scripture to resist the Devil, to hate what is evil, but does that mean
we should hate the Devil, even though we are told not to hate other humans who
are our enemies and persecute us? If we should love our enemies and pray for those
who persecute us, and the Devil is our enemy and persecutes us, then should we
pray for him? And if we pray for him, wouldn’t we pray for him out of love? Or
do we not bother praying for the Devil because we think he is beyond saving
(and, therefore, note the opportunity costs with regard to the other prayers we could be
offering up instead), and because we already know in scripture that the Devil
will be judged and cast into eternal punishment (Revelation 20:10)? I suppose
if we must ‘resist the Devil’, then we probably shouldn’t give him the time of
the day in our thought processes. But we should be mindful of his influence to
be alert to his schemes.
Just a few off-the-peg thoughts to consider.
