Matthew 5:43-48
In these verses Jesus is continuing his 'Sermon on the Mount' and dealing with the subjects of forgiveness rather than retaliation, and loving our enemies.
I particularly noticed his instruction to 'pray for them which despitefully use you'.
Have you ever done this? It is hard.
It can be hard because knotted inside you may be your natural desire for revenge, hatred, and need for justice.
How can we pray for them?
To start with all we can do is tell the Lord that we know his command to love our enemies, and confess our hearts and natural feelings to him. He knows more than we do what is going on in them anyway!
We cannot hide our deep rooted anger, hatred and hurt from him however much we might be able to paste on a smile and deceive those around us.
As we pray to him and tell him that we know we should forgive but we don't feel forgiving, we can ask for a spirit of forgiveness. Ask him to help you say, 'I forgive so and so'.
When you say it perhaps it will feel as if it is through gritted teeth.
Perhaps you will feel insincere.
But so often I have found that saying these words starts softening my heart towards that person.
Even though it feels far from true forgiveness, the Lord can break you down in grief that you feel so hard towards them, that it feels so impossible to forgive them - because it shows to you your hard, natural heart, and makes you aware of your need of Jesus to help you.
It makes you ashamed of what you are by nature and how far short we naturally are from being like Jesus.
And then, often I have been amazed to find a spirit of pity, and even compassion, and even love gently start to flow towards that person.
We might have to pray this way many times if this person is often offending you, or if they have deeply hurt you. But what a blessing it is, that as we have so treated our Saviour and he forgives, that he gives to us too, this spirit of forgiveness towards others.
But it brings up the dilemma of how we are to live and behave towards these people in our lives who often 'despitefully use you, and persecute you'.
Forgive, love, bless and pray are the four commands from Jesus in this section, and he doesn't say it is to just be the once. It is left 'open ended' to apply for however many times needed.
It reminds me of Peter's question to the Lord of how often they should forgive fellow Christians - who you might think should behave better.
Peter suggested seven times might be enough, and when you think about it we would probably think that was a pretty generous number of times to have your fellow believer upset you and for you to need to forgive them.
But what does Jesus answer?
"Seventy times seven" (Matthew 18:22).
In other words, limitless times.
How this searches me this morning! Does it you?
Has a fellow Christian recently hurt you? Again? You have felt the unjustness of it and despaired of the situation. Perhaps you have bitterly complained to your husband, your friend, your family.
But what is Jesus telling us?
We need to forgive that person. We need to love, bless and pray for them. Was this a test for us perhaps? Was the Lord showing us ourselves - looking to see if we would go to him with our hurt or complain to whoever would listen?
In the case of fellow Christians who hurt us there are further instructions from Jesus in Matthew 18:15-17 of how we should behave and deal with the matter.
But let us return to those people who are out to hurt us. Let's see what Jesus said and did.
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Think of those times when the angry mob wanted to throw him off a cliff, when the religious leaders spoke against him, tried to catch him out, rejected him. Jesus removed himself from the situation where his life was in danger because it was not yet the time or way for him to die. He escaped until it was God's will for him to die.
In other situations he explained, he taught, he declared the truth, he warned - and when arrested he willingly submitted and even healed one who was there to capture him - and as he endured the beatings of soldiers and much more before his death he quietly suffered it without words of anger, revenge, insult or protest at the unjustness.
Then when on the cross in the middle of his agony Jesus prayed, "Father forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34).
We might be mystified by his words, 'they know not what they do'.
They knew alright we might think!
They knew they were killing him, that they hated him, that they were envious of his popularity, of his challenge to their old ways and traditions, of his power to heal, of his authority when he spoke, of his ability to outwit them....how could Jesus say they knew not what they were doing?
Is this the thinking that we carry towards those who upset us?
Perhaps they are intentionally unkind to us, knowing full well the hurt they are causing us - we think of those who set out to murder, injure, or verbally abuse and emotionally hurt.
'Father forgive them; for they know not what they do'.
These poor murderers of Jesus are to be pitied. They were murdering the Son of God who had come to save sinners and give them eternal life. The God who had made them and given them their very breath and body.
They were blind, deaf and spiritually dead - or awakened but resisting and rebelling. They were under the control of their Master, Satan and themselves, their sinful nature.
And dear reader, without the grace of God would we have been any different? Would we really?
This is how we are to think of our enemies - in pity. They - unless God mercifully shows them their sins and gives them repentance and new hearts - have eternal punishment before them.
Well, in conclusion for today let us think how we respond to those who have, are or will hurt us and remember the commands from the Lord Jesus and his own example.
Let us go to him and confess our hurt, our need to forgive, our need for his sympathy and comfort, our need of help to pray for our 'enemies' or fellow believers and for opportunities to show acts of love in our kindness to them, that we might behave as 'children' of our Heavenly Father (Matthew 5:45).
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