Love When It’s Hard
Matthew 5:39–44 — But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other cheek also . . . give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you … love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you
Jesus calls us in Matthew to not resist an evil person; if they attempt to inflict damage we are to take it and take even more. When this person seeks our help, we must help them with a loving heart. It’s hard to accept this, and even harder to actually implement this into our lives. Through a similar situation, I was able to reflect on God’s grace and how we can extend it to others in cases like this.
“Is this really what we should be doing?” is what I questioned myself for a while. Are we really called to just take it, and endure it? And after all that, if they require assistance, do we simply forgive and love them again? It was hard for me to come to terms with it, but I believe the answer is yes.
God’s Grace and Mercy
Ephesians 2:3–4 — Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ … it is by grace you have been saved.
Grace and mercy are similar concepts; they are two sides of the same coin. Mercy is the withholding of punishment, while grace is to give undeserved favour. God provides both of these to us. We are only saved through God’s grace and mercy, and without it, we’d perish. He grants us entrance into heaven because of grace, and does not force us into hell because of mercy.
Grace is also a gift. A gift has several properties: the recipient receives it with no debt, the cost is borne by the giver, and ownership is transferred. He gives us this grace for us to benefit, even though we are so undeserving of it. Through His grace, we live a better life with God.
Sin separates us so far from God. God is holy, and can have no association with sin at all. When someone does something wrong in our eyes, continually, even after we mention it, it hurts for us to look at them right? It’s certainly not easy to love them. It’s the same thing with God — He gives us all these commandments, yet we do not give a second thought before trespassing them; sin becomes our habitual way of living. Why should He, the perfect and holy God, give us His grace and mercy? He shouldn’t, but still He does time and time again. And there’s no way for us to earn it, as grace is not given based on works. We only deserve punishment and no grace, but it’s so beautiful how God shows His grace and mercy by withholding the former and giving the latter.
Hebrews 4:16 — Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
God is the definition of grace, and it’s been given to us so that we can extend it to others and serve. We shouldn’t take this gift for granted, but rather we should embrace it fully and let it change us. In whatever period of time we are in, it is readily available for us. Through grace, we’ve also been given gifts that we should utilize to serve and help others.
Revenge/Ignorance/Love
Suppose someone who has wronged us reaches out to us, seeking help. It’s also likely that in the future, they will continue to wrong you, but at this moment, they need your assistance. What will you do: take revenge, ignore them, or show love and help them?
1 John 3:15 — Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.
If we take revenge, are we not hating them, just as they seemed to have done to us? Hate strays us further away from eternal love — it is the opposite of what Jesus commands us to do. We could also choose to ignore the person, but that’s similar to revenge. In a time of need, turning away from someone is almost equivalent to mistreating them, since you are able to provide help, yet you decide not to.
Matthew 8:7 — “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”
We can attempt to justify our treatment towards them as their punishment, supposedly because they deserve it for doing something wrong. However, remember the adulterous woman. The Pharisees brought a woman who had committed adultery to Jesus. They said she deserved to be stoned, thus laying a trap for Jesus: if he disallows it, it goes against the Law of Moses, but if he allows it, he breaks the Roman law. He responds with “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Hence, only those who are without sin are fit to judge and to punish, and that’s certainly not us.
Romans 12:19 — Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath
So even if they did do something wrong, we are in no position to punish them. We ourselves are full of sin, and it would be hypocritical of us to punish someone else for their sins. God will deal with the sin in His own time, and we shouldn’t worry about it. We don’t even have the authority to judge them, as we must take the plank out of our own eye before doing the same to others.
Genesis 6:5–8 — The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, … his heart was deeply troubled
Therefore, what we should do is extend love towards them and help them. This really mirrors our relationship with God, as we constantly wrong Him and stray away but He still forgives us and shows us mercy and grace. He hurts when we sin; it brings Him sorrow and grief. If this is how the Almighty God treats us even though we mistreat Him, with so much undeserving love, shouldn’t we do the same to others?
1 John 4:8 — Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
God’s grace is so beautiful and forgiving. It may be hard to accept the passage in Matthew, but realizing my hypocrisy and how loving God was despite my behaviour really helped me change my mind. Punishment will be served if they are wrong, but I am in no spot to determine whether they are or not. God is just, I believe in that, and He alone knows everyone’s heart, so it should be Him that judges. He tells me to love my enemy and pray for those who persecute me, so I should also help them out too when they need it. It really awes me how God is able to forgive and to give grace to me even though I’m so unworthy of it. If He, the mighty One who should be punishing me, still shows love even when I wrong him, I, a lowly servant, should also show love to others when they wrong me. To know God means to love; real love is not only when circumstances are easy or certain people are easy to love, real love is also showing love and grace and mercy when it’s hard to, like when people wrong us, as God does for us.
