Colossians 3:12-13 ESV
“Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”
We who are followers of Jesus Christ are still human beings.
We still live in flesh bodies. And so we still have a propensity to sin, and we
are still tempted to sin. And if we are not armored up spiritually, and so we
let our guards down, we may respond to certain situations in the flesh and not
in the Spirit, and we may say or do things that hurt other people, even fellow
believers in Christ. Or we may be the ones who have gotten hurt by other people’s
words or actions which we believed were against us.
So, when these things take place, what should our response
be? If at all possible we should try to reconcile with those we have hurt and/or
who have hurt us. First we must forgive the other person, even if we believe
the other person was in the wrong. And if we were in the wrong we should extend
our sincere apologies and seek forgiveness from the other person. And then we
need to forgive which means that we hold no animosity in our hearts toward the
other person and we do not seek revenge but reconciliation.
And instead of animosity and aloofness and distancing
ourselves from our fellow Christians we show them love and compassion and kindness.
And we are willing to humble ourselves and to have others think badly of us if
they are not willing to forgive us for whatever wrong we may have done or that
they may have perceived that we have done. For it isn’t always black and white
and good and evil. Sometimes these situations are because of misunderstandings
and people not willing to talk them through reasonably.
So, if we are the ones who did the wrong, then we need to do
what is right to try to make it right. And if we are the ones who have been
wronged, or we believe we have, then we need to forgive those who have hurt us
and do what we know to do to try to reconcile. And then we need to put on love
and kindness. And we need to demonstrate that love and kindness to those who we
felt did us wrong. For if we hold on to unforgiveness it will eat away at us
and it will destroy us from within.
Basically, if we are followers of Jesus Christ, in truth, we
should be those who love even our enemies and who do good to people and not
evil. So we should definitely not be at war with our fellow believers in
Christ. We are not all going to always agree on everything. And we aren’t all
going to always see things from the same perspective. Now I am not saying that
we should tolerate or pacify sin. This is not about coddling people in their
sin. But we can still love other people regardless of what they have done.
Colossians 3:14-15 ESV
“And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.”
Now God is love and love comes from God so love is truth and
righteousness and holiness and godliness. It is kindness and forgiveness and
humility and compassion. And it is moral purity and faithfulness and goodness
and self-control. So love is action not just feelings. We can love others for
whom we don’t have warm and emotional feelings. For love is based in who God is
and not in who we are. So we can love even when we are hated and mistreated in
return. For God loved us even while we were dead in our sins.
So, God is our model for how we are to love others. Now God
is God so he has the authority and the power and the right to show vengeance against
his enemies. And he doesn’t have to forgive everyone. For he will only forgive
the truly penitent who obey him. But we are not God and so we have no right to
exercise vengeance against others. And we have no right to not forgive others
because of all that God has forgiven us when we were so undeserving of his
grace and mercy.
But God loved us even while we were still living in sin, and
he loved us enough to send Jesus Christ (the Son of God and God the Son) to die
on that cross for our sins so that we could be delivered from our slavery to
sin and live holy lives pleasing to God. And this is how we need to love
others. We must be willing to humble ourselves and accept people thinking evil
of us, if that is the case, and if there is no way to change their thinking, in
order to show them the love that comes from God who is love.
For remember that Jesus Christ was sinless, and so he did no
wrong even though he was accused of much wrong. And he had enemies who were
hounding him constantly trying to trip him up with his words so that they could
find cause to accuse him of wrongdoing. Yet he willingly gave up his life for us
on the cross because he loved us and so he wanted to free us from our slavery
(addiction) to sin so that we could live in freedom from the control of sin and
in righteousness and holiness.
So sometimes loving other people means sticking our necks
out on the line for people to chop it off (not literally, but figuratively). It
means we love even our enemies and even though we know they are plotting evil
against us and even though we know they intend to do us evil and not good. Now
we need to make certain this is true and that this is not just in our minds,
but if we have real evidence that people are against us to do us harm, we are
still supposed to love them and forgive them and do good to them.
There
is a Redeemer
Melody Green / Keith Green
There is a redeemer, Jesus, God's own son,
Precious lamb of God, Messiah, Holy one,
Jesus my redeemer, Name above all names,
Precious lamb of God, Messiah, Oh, for sinners slain.
When I stand in glory, I will see his face,
And there I'll serve my king forever, In that holy place.
Thank you oh my father, For giving us your son,
And leaving your spirit, 'til the work on earth is done.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldRcFz7rK7w
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