I'm horrible at holding a grudge. Seriously. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t trust everyone who’s acted toward me with bad faith – but I don’t wish them ill or hold hate for them in my heart. This is partly because my temperament doesn’t function that way, but when I find my mind spooled up over something someone has done to me, I use prayer and reason to pull myself out of that trajectory.
In John 13:34, Jesus gives us a new commandment; “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”
Reading that statement, it sound so easy. In reality the concept stings from the hurts so many of us are faced with daily. Today, those of us who claim the Christian faith are persecuted for having personal businesses in which we choose to express our beliefs, we’re told we’re intolerant and called names like “homophobic” because we hold tight to Biblical principles, we’ve even been forbidden from worshiping together because the ‘state’ says so.
How do we ‘love one another’ and not be swallowed up by those who hate us and want to silence us?
First, we recognize that what Christians are facing today has already been identified by the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 6:12: “We aren’t fighting against human enemies but against rulers, authorities, forces of cosmic darkness and spiritual powers of evil in the heavens.” (Common English Bible). Realistically then, we’re not going to win THAT kind of a battle on our own without some kind of spiritual help. Without entreating upon the name of our Lord and channeling the power He gives us to fight, we’re going to get nowhere fast. So, there’s that.
Secondly, we must realize we’re not the first generation to have to literally fight for our freedom against the tyranny of man. The Bible contains at least 86 verses testifying to the wickedness of man. Without God then, man is but lost. To think humans should somehow rely on humans to do the right things on their own when written records extending back thousands of years speak to us of the history of man’s inhumanity to man, is simply nonsensical. Only God can change any of that (Ezekiel 36:26) – which is why we must pray for those who curse us (Luke 6:27-28).
Thirdly, there are instructions for how to deal with a Christian friend who has wronged us (Matthew 18:15-17) and we should use those instructions because God has given us friends here on earth to keep each other accountable. “Just as iron sharpens iron, friends sharpen the minds of each other.” (Proverbs 27:17 – See also Galatians 6 – CEB). For those who are not Christians – and those who are unable or unwilling to be reconciled with you, do as Paul and Barnabas did in Antioch; shake the dust off your feet and move on (Act 13:5). Scripture doesn’t say to be ugly, or fight with them, or otherwise curse them, it just says, essentially, “move on”. Paul and Barnabas were “bold” in the way they confronted the people, but once the people did not heed their message, it was time to “move on”.
Lastly, fear breeds hate and contempt and every possible bad human trait. If we can’t have faith that, no matter what happens around us or to us, God is with us and has plans for our future (Jeremiah 29:11), we’ll live constantly in fear, dealing with humanity from a position of anger and hate. Anger hurts only ourselves. It puts us in a position where we can’t reason properly and we can’t be victorious over any form of evil if we use only emotion because the “heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9).
No, the human side of us doesn’t want to love anyone who hurts us, but we’re not talking brotherly, friendship love, we’re talking about the kind of love we have for people because God made us all – a love for HUMANITY. A love that keeps us from descending into a place where lack of reason rules our every move and forces us further away from an ability to see how to push back the evil that presses down around us, but forces us further away from God, family and friends.
Jesus wasn’t ‘friends’ with the Pharisees. He pushed back against them mightily, frequently calling them vipers and hypocrites (Matthew 12:34) – we even saw Him get righteously angry with money changers in the Temple and turn over their tables (Mark 11:15-18). Being Christians doesn’t mean that we tolerate those who try and hurt us. We may act with ‘righteous’ anger, but we cannot allow hatred and anger to rule us. We must act with self-control always and attempt to speak the truth in love – hating the sin, not the sinner.
How do we ‘love one another’ and not be swallowed up by those who hate us and want to silence us?
First, we recognize that what Christians are facing today has already been identified by the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 6:12: “We aren’t fighting against human enemies but against rulers, authorities, forces of cosmic darkness and spiritual powers of evil in the heavens.” (Common English Bible). Realistically then, we’re not going to win THAT kind of a battle on our own without some kind of spiritual help. Without entreating upon the name of our Lord and channeling the power He gives us to fight, we’re going to get nowhere fast. So, there’s that.
Secondly, we must realize we’re not the first generation to have to literally fight for our freedom against the tyranny of man. The Bible contains at least 86 verses testifying to the wickedness of man. Without God then, man is but lost. To think humans should somehow rely on humans to do the right things on their own when written records extending back thousands of years speak to us of the history of man’s inhumanity to man, is simply nonsensical. Only God can change any of that (Ezekiel 36:26) – which is why we must pray for those who curse us (Luke 6:27-28).
Thirdly, there are instructions for how to deal with a Christian friend who has wronged us (Matthew 18:15-17) and we should use those instructions because God has given us friends here on earth to keep each other accountable. “Just as iron sharpens iron, friends sharpen the minds of each other.” (Proverbs 27:17 – See also Galatians 6 – CEB). For those who are not Christians – and those who are unable or unwilling to be reconciled with you, do as Paul and Barnabas did in Antioch; shake the dust off your feet and move on (Act 13:5). Scripture doesn’t say to be ugly, or fight with them, or otherwise curse them, it just says, essentially, “move on”. Paul and Barnabas were “bold” in the way they confronted the people, but once the people did not heed their message, it was time to “move on”.
Lastly, fear breeds hate and contempt and every possible bad human trait. If we can’t have faith that, no matter what happens around us or to us, God is with us and has plans for our future (Jeremiah 29:11), we’ll live constantly in fear, dealing with humanity from a position of anger and hate. Anger hurts only ourselves. It puts us in a position where we can’t reason properly and we can’t be victorious over any form of evil if we use only emotion because the “heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9).
No, the human side of us doesn’t want to love anyone who hurts us, but we’re not talking brotherly, friendship love, we’re talking about the kind of love we have for people because God made us all – a love for HUMANITY. A love that keeps us from descending into a place where lack of reason rules our every move and forces us further away from an ability to see how to push back the evil that presses down around us, but forces us further away from God, family and friends.
Jesus wasn’t ‘friends’ with the Pharisees. He pushed back against them mightily, frequently calling them vipers and hypocrites (Matthew 12:34) – we even saw Him get righteously angry with money changers in the Temple and turn over their tables (Mark 11:15-18). Being Christians doesn’t mean that we tolerate those who try and hurt us. We may act with ‘righteous’ anger, but we cannot allow hatred and anger to rule us. We must act with self-control always and attempt to speak the truth in love – hating the sin, not the sinner.
Remember, a house divided against itself cannot stand (Mark 3:25). In order to do the MOST good against evil, we must do our best to use the Fruits Of The Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) and work with others of the faith, avoiding petty differences, loving one another as humans, even if we can’t as friends.
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