It’s hard to do good for people who don’t deserve it, isn’t it?
We all have those people we work with or people in our families that we would rather punch in the face than give a minute of our time to. I bet you can name a few people right now that would you rather work around or completely remove from your life. Words like compassion, friendly, joy don’t seem to fit into our narrative with these so called toxic people. Right?
Am I making sense here?
This is a tension that many of us live with day in and day out. I wrestle with this too, but check out one of the story that Jesus invites us into. Remember the story of the Sermon on the Mount? You know, love your enemy, turn the other check and yup…even go the extra mile. Or, blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Before we walk this out…I’m not talking about justified self defense or protecting your family here.
Sounds great doing a study on the sermon on the mount or reading it in your daily devotional, but living out in real life…well that’s a quite a different thing all together. Well it gets better because Jesus brings it all in by ending the sermon with this, “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”
OK, let’s hit the pause button here. In the last couple of months using the sermon on the mount as the litmus test, are you a wise man or a foolish one?
