“Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” Ephesians 4:32
“So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.” John 13:34
I want to offer you a challenging question: Do you tend to treat others how you feel they deserve to be treated or do you tend to treat others just as God in Christ has treated you?
I’ve been around Christian communities my entire life and know that sadly sometimes Christians can be petty, cranky, irritable, and easily offended. We often take issue with minor things and keep a silent record of wrongs in our heart. This isn’t just Christians; the world does it too! This is simply fallen nature at work. This is our sinful nature getting the better of us.
But as Christians, we are called to a different kind of life. We are called to a ‘just as’ kind of life. We are called to treat others ‘just as’ God has treated us. Has He treated us as we deserve? No! He has given us undeserved grace, unearned blessings, and unconditional love. He even gave us His own life while we were still His enemies, arrogantly and rebelliously sinning against Him. Has that level of grace sunk into your own heart?
God expects that the way He has treated us should have direct bearing on how we treat others. We should treat others with patience, understanding, graciousness, forgiveness and unconditional love because that is just how we have been treated by God. Yet so often, we can find ourselves acting more like the unmerciful servant of Matthew 18:21-35. We’ve been forgiven an exorbitant amount of debt and then turn around and choke someone over 5 bucks.
It seems we never grow beyond our need for the most basic of Christian truths. God has loved us unconditionally; that should soften our hearts to love those we feel don’t deserve it. We have been shown grace upon grace and that should compel us to overlook the offenses of others. God has been kind, gentle-hearted, and tender towards us. We should extend this same attitude towards others.
As Christians, we above all should understand how inappropriate it is for us to be rude, callous or easily offended. I know, sometimes our sinful nature gets the better of us, and God forgives us for that too. But may His kindness and patience towards us compel us to treat others just as He treats us.