Love One Another

Take someone whose words cut as often as they encourage. It’s difficult to respond to anyone who does that, but it’s even harder if that person professes to be a believer. Do I speak the truth? Well, I have a theory. This believer may be forgiven but doesn’t feel forgiven — and hence he or she struggles with forgiving. Instead of responding with grace, they injure with their tongues.

We tend to think such people don’t feel remorse for their spitefulness, but what if it’s just the opposite? What if they live in a self-made, self-maintained prison, punishing themselves for the past? And what if the bars of that cage grow stronger every time they give in to bitterness and lash out because it gives them yet another reason to hate themselves even more?

But, wait! What if those same bars get weaker when our response to their ugliness is more love and forgiveness … instead of responding in the same way they did? What if we’re the factor which determines if that person lives in self-hate or if they’re eventually fully healed? What if their response depends on you and me choosing to act from the new nature Christ gave us?