LOVE THE UNLOVABLE

If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink: for you will heap burning coals on his head and the Lord will reward you.
Proverbs 25:21-22

We live in a world that operates completely opposite from the way God calls us to live. One of the sayings the world have is “I’ll get you before you can get me.” Revenge is the way of the world. But we are not of the world and our attitudes should not be like the attitudes of the world.

Jesus tells us that when we are persecuted and abused that we are to count it joy when these things happen to us. Jesus further said that we will be offended but woe to those who bring the offense. Let the Lord deal with the offenders. God exalts His Word even above His name and He says that we will be blessed when we take no revenge on people who hurt us. We have all experienced backstabbers, slanderers and friends who have betrayed us. Our natural inclination is to avoid and isolate ourselves from these people and this can work unless these are people that may be Church members, family members or co-workers. It is kind of impossible to avoid these folks so we simply just ignore them or worse yet, hate on them. But God tells us to help them if they have a need. Say what? Yes, help them. It is hard to help those who have come against you but it is not impossible. With the help of the Holy Spirit we can bless those who have hurt us. We can do good to those who go out of their way to use us. Never let anyone make you bitter, pray for them and bless them.

We can be a blessing to those who have disrupted and caused discord in our lives if we look at the situation from the eyes of Jesus. It has been said that "hurt people, hurt people." Jesue spoke from the Cross to the Father to forgive those who called for His crucifixion. He looked out over the crowd and all He could see were those who had no idea what they were doing. They had no idea that they were persecuting God in the flesh. They thought they were getting rid of a problem that challenged their very existence and way of life. Jesus challenged their selfish thinking and stirred emotions of fear, jealousy and envy in these religious zealots. He was well loved by the people and set them free as He operated in miracles, healings and deliverances, signs and wonder which caused the people to follow Him. The religious leaders who hated him were sipping on some serious “E and J” (envy and jealousy! But He knew what they did not know and that was the plan to redeem man.

We will suffer persecution when we operate in the things of God. People hurt us when they don’t understand God. People mistreat others when they don’t understand love. People hurt others when they feel that others are acting different from what is natural to the spirit of man. So we bless, do good and love them in spite of their behavior, for God will reward us with His own nature. He will reward us with love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, faithfulness, goodness and gentleness. This is the fruit we will bear and the Spirit of God made manifest in us along with eternal life with God forever. What a beautiful reward for obedience and love.