Love Beyond Reason
“But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for He is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.”
—Luke 6:35
Most of us struggle to forgive a friend who betrayed us or a family member who disappointed us. Jesus, however, calls us to a radical, cross-shaped love that reaches even to our enemies—“Love your enemies… do good to those who hate you.” His words are not poetry. They are marching orders for those who belong to Christ’s Kingdom values.
But what does it look like when someone lives this way?
The story of Nate and Steve Saint gives us a rare and powerful answer.
When Love Is Stronger Than Spears
In January 1956, missionary pilot Nate Saint, along with Jim Elliot and three other missionaries, landed on a sandbar deep in the jungles of Ecuador. Their goal was clear but costly: to bring the gospel of Jesus to the Waodani, a remote and violent tribe known for revenge killings and isolation. Within days, all five missionaries were speared to death. Their deaths shocked the missionary world and grieved their families, but it was not the end of the story. In the wake of this tragedy, Nate’s sister Rachel Saint and Elisabeth Elliot (Jim’s widow) made the extraordinary decision to go and live among the very people who had killed their loved ones. Through their witness, many Waodani—including some of the killers—came to faith in Christ. Years later, Steve Saint, Nate’s son, returned to the jungle as an adult and brought his own family to live among the Waodani. There he met Mincaye, one of the warriors who had killed his father.
But instead of vengeance, Steve brought grace.
Instead of bitterness, he brought forgiveness.
And in an act that could only come from a heart shaped by Luke 6 love, Steve Saint adopted Mincaye as a grandfather to his children. This man, once a murderer, became family. Steve often introduced him in public as “the man who killed my father… and is now like a father to me.” 
What Could Possibly Explain This?
Only one answer makes sense: Steve Saint had received that same kind of love from Jesus. God did not wait for us to become lovable before He loved us. Romans 5:8 reminds us, “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” And Jesus Himself tells us that to reflect the heart of God, we must “be merciful, even as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:36).
In other words, the grace we’ve been given becomes the grace we extend. Steve Saint had every human reason to avoid the tribe, to stay angry, or to keep his children far from those who had taken his father’s life. But because he had tasted the mercy of God, he could walk in the mercy of God—even toward a former enemy.
Loving Like That Changes the World
This kind of love changes stories, legacies, and even nations. When Steve and Mincaye traveled together and spoke around the world, people wept—not only because it was a beautiful story, but because it was the gospel in motion. It was Luke 6, fleshed out in real life:
“Love your enemies”… “Do good to those who hurt you”… “Be merciful as your Father is merciful”
Jesus wasn’t offering a suggestion; these were His commands because He was describing what it looks like to belong to Him. This is not soft love; it’s costly love. It’s love that remembers the cross, love that absorbs pain, love that lays down its life for the sake of redemption.
What About You?
Who has wronged you? Who has wounded your heart or taken something from you? The gospel calls us to do the impossible—until we remember that it’s exactly what God has already done for us. He loved us at our worst. He came toward us when we ran from Him. And now He invites us to join Him in this kind of love. The Saints didn’t just share the gospel—they lived it. They didn’t just tell the story of reconciliation—they became part of it, and now we know better what Jesus’ teaching looks like when lived out in the real world.
May we do the same.
Read More of Steve’s Saints’ missions work