You have heard it said...

The thing about Jesus that really ticked off the religious leaders of his day was the way he turned the light on their dark hearts. They had become very skilled at looking good on the outside & thinking that was what mattered. Their problem that Jesus was exposing, of course, was on the inside - what really mattered.

So as I'm reading the later part of Matthew 5 where Jesus says "You have heard it said....but I say" about things like adultery, divorce, revenge, vows & enemy relations; the reality that I could not escape was that even though my inside has been addressed by faith in Christ, it's still easy to act good on the outside while concealing what's really going on inside. I'm constantly reminded that even though I am God's child and have been adopted into His family, I am still waiting for the day when I will no longer have to wrestle with a stinky inside.

Then I began to think about what Jesus said in 5:38-48 in regard to revenge & loving enemies. I have to say, there's not much harder than responding to someone who hurts me with love. It simply doesn't feel right no matter how it's served it up. Of course that's because I think I have the right not to be hurt and that the world is supposed to stop until everything has been balanced out where I'm concerned. What's the chances that you too struggle in this area? By the way, it's not an acceptable alternative for me when I am hurt to just pout or crawl down in a hole. And responding in love is not a outward smile while grinding teeth on the inside or saying something ugly while smiling.

Truly responding in love to someone who hurts us is (at least in my mind) the pinnacle of humility. It's the ultimate expression of "it's not about me." In fact, I'm not sure I can even comprehend what it means to respond in love because all I want to do is retaliate. It probably looks and sounds a whole lot like "Father, forgive them because they don't even know what they are doing."