Sometimes the things people do just plain make me angry. The postman might deliver my mail to some other address, causing me to hunt through the neighborhood for my missing mail. A passerby walking his dog may allow the animal to go on my lawn without cleaning up after it. A careless driver runs a stop sign and swerves in front of me, missing my car by inches, then has the nerve to flip me off. My husband and kids sometimes don’t appreciate me as much as I think they should.
Whenever I feel offended or abused, I remind myself that all of us have faults. No one is perfect—especially me. I’m sure others feel I’ve offended or abused them at times also. And if Jesus is our example of how to love one another and get along with one another in spite of our faults and the injustices we hand each other, then looking toward Him, I have no excuse to harbor anger or unforgiveness toward anyone, no matter what they do or however guilty they may be.
Hanging on a pitiless cross, Jesus, the innocent of innocents, forgave those who had misunderstood and abused him and were now mocking him has he neared death. “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,”* was his cry. How utterly selfless, and what a pure example of God’s unfathomable love toward us His plea expressed.
When I came to the cross with my heart laid bare, when I knelt under Jesus’ shadow, He accepted me, forgave my sins, and made me a new human being. I try to remember His incredible depth of forgiveness when anger rises toward someone whom I think has offended me. Jesus not only forgave me, he died for me. If I truly understand this, how can I not, then, forgive others for the wrongs they have done me?
Paul lived and preached this awesome depth of forgiveness as well. While imprisoned in Rome, beaten and suffering for preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, Paul wrote the following words to his beloved church at Ephesus: “And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.”
May we all strive to not merely hear these words but live and practice them.
* Luke 23:34
Pam
But I thought she brought up a good point. How do you tell if someone is a Christian? Accepting Jesus as your Lord and Savior doesn’t give you a glowing halo. (Which could come in handy if you want to read at night but may make it hard to sleep.) Nope, no halos or pink auras. Not even a sublime, peaceful expression for most of us. Unless someone is wearing a cross necklace or lapel pin, there aren’t any visual clues telling those they meet that they are a Christian. So how do believers set themselves apart? And let's be clear on this point: Christians are set apart. We are in the world but not of the world (John 17). We are in the family of God. If we are different shouldn’t we act different?
It seems to me that after all Jesus has done for us, the least we can do is be kind to one another. Give someone the benefit of the doubt when they are less than kind to me. Be slow to anger and quick to forgive. God’s mercy is immeasurable, so shouldn’t our mercy, too, be full and rich?
Christians need always to stand firm and strong for truth and righteousness. Yet, we can and should be kind and merciful in our day-to-day interactions. If we take an eternal perspective we’ll realize that in a thousand years it won’t matter if the design center messed up our order for drapes, or if our cable is out or we were overcharged on our phone bill. These kinds of things are concerns of the world. We will be here for a very short time, so why not show compassion? What better witness to an unsaved world?
