“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Matthew 5:43-44 (NIV)
Unfairness is part of the human condition. You can’t live on this earth for long without feeling like someone has treated you unfairly.
You can choose to respond to the people who hurt you by hurting them. That’s the easiest choice to make, no doubt about it, but it’s not what God calls you to do.
God gives us another option in His Word: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:43-44 NIV).
When people hurt you, they expect you to retaliate. They expect you to seek revenge. But God wants you to do the exact opposite. He wants you to respond in love.
Responding to mistreatment with love keeps the other person from controlling you. You can’t control when another person treats you unfairly, but you can control whether you get bitter in the process. You can control your response to injustice.
Just because you respond to an offender lovingly doesn’t mean you continue to allow injustice to happen. On the contrary, we must lovingly seek justice. We must work for justice in the world without retaliating. The Bible commands us to “be fair-minded and just. Do what is right!”(Jeremiah 22:3 NLT).
Father, help me to always respond in love IJN.
Shalom!