But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…
Summary: Loving others as God loves us is a complicated business.
Forgiving someone and judging them are closely related. Without God as a guide, all that is left is our judgment.
Suppose that you own a business. Let’s imaging that you own a neighborhood convenience store. You have stuff in your store that people in the neighborhood want and need. All kinds of stuff! Milk and eggs, canned and boxed goods, and cat and dog food line the shelves. There is a freezer with ice cream and frozen foods. A cooler with soda and beer, and another cooler with deli meats and such. Of course, there are lots of candy bars and cookies, chips, dip, and things like that. You hire several people to work in your store and one day you discover that one of them has been stealing from you.
At first, you are angry. How could someone do that to you? Then you start to think about how you will respond. Of course, you will fire the person immediately. The next question is whether or not to press charges and have them arrested. Third, you wonder if it is worth taking them to court to recover what was stolen. Overall, the question becomes:
How should you punish them?
After deciding what to do about the situation, you have to talk with the person who has been stealing. You confront them and to your surprise, they confess. More than just a confession, they offer a tearful apology and you find out that there is some personal tragedy in their life that drove them to do what they did.
Now you have a make a judgment.
Suddenly, what they did doesn’t look so bad. You have a perspective that you hadn’t been aware of before. Because you care about your employees, you feel compassion for this one that was driven to crime by circumstances beyond their control.
Should you forgive them?
How we respond to what others do depends on how much we know about them. The problem is, as humans, there is a lot we don’t know. But there is someone who does know all: God.
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God’s instructions go beyond punishment and forgiveness. God commands us to love our enemies. Love!! The word Jesus uses for “love” is not the mushy kind of love or a passive love. Jesus commands us to “agapaō,” which means to care abundantly for the person. One of the ways we express this care is a willingness to forgive.
This is complicated. Sometimes loving someone means letting them experience the consequences of their actions. Sometimes, as in the case of our illustration here, there might be a reason to protect them from the consequences. Knowing God’s will and his Word are essential to reflecting God’s light in these types of situations.
In every case, whether they end up suffering consequences or not, we are to love them throughout the process. God-like love, it seems, demands God-like forgiveness.
Application: Consider the love that God shows you and me, and apply that same love to the people you know.
Food for Thought: How does anger affect our ability to make fair judgments and love as God wants us to love?
Anger is simply an emotion. It is what we do with it and how we respond to it that matters. Do we, with the Holy Spirit’s help, master our anger or does it master us? Genesis 4: 6 – 7.
Anger can give the devil a foothold into our lives. We are commanded to not sin in our anger and to deal with the anger rather than letting it fester into bitterness of soul. Ephesians 4: 26 – 27.
If anger is on the driver’s seat and our sinful response is making the decision, we will not love as God desires us to.
Rich,
I like your warning against letting anger in the “driver’s seat.” Anger is a horrible driver!
01-08-2023, How does anger affect our ability to make fair judgments and love as God wants us to love?
Yes, fair judgements are made in the absence of our emotions, and I believe acting in anger toward the individual, clouds our judgement. Over the years I have fired a number of people it was not a happy experience for me or the person I was firing, and often I lost a person with great potential because they just would not listen. Right is right, and wrong is wrong. I don’t believe there is anyplace in our bible that calls for situation ethic’s.
It really hurts to discipline our children, but for their good we do what is right for them, and appropriate for the situations.
Thanks Ron!
Your stories this morning make me think of the word ‘objectivity.’ The more objective we can be, the more fair we are. Fairness is a big part of the agapé love we are called to.
I think you’er onto something here brother. Great point!
Ron.
👍