If you find it difficult to love someone when they stab you in the back, offend you, lie about you, curse you, hate you, or worse… then consider 1 John 1:7-11. You may already be in the darkness apart from God.
PLEASE HEAR ME ON THIS!!!
If we are in the light as He is in the light, then we will see others as Christ sees them AND us!
Often times we think that hating someone will lead us down a dark path, but that’s mixing up the cause and the effect. Hating someone is actually the result of our life being in darkness. John wrote chapter 1 as a warning sign that hating a brother is evidence of us living in darkness.
Yes, this truth hurts. We’ve all been guilty of hating someone even though we may not actually want to call it hate. If we truly are Christians, then we will love those who offend us just as Christ loved those who stood at the foot of the cross mocking him, cursing him, and hating him while he plead for God to forgive them.
Do you plead for those who hurt you that God will forgive them? Do you desire to do good to those who hurt you? Do you truly want them to get blessings from God instead of getting what they deserve? If you’re like me, the truth stings. The action of loving our neighbor as ourselves means that we pray for them just like we pray for ourselves. We truly don’t deserve the forgiveness, blessings, and life that God gives us, yet the love of God is so GREAT that He forgives us, gives us life, and provides for our needs. It’s good that we don’t receive what we deserve. Can you see that, pray that, and be used to accomplish that in the lives of those who have hurt you?
John is warning us that hatred is a sign that WE are in darkness. There is NO darkness in God. If we are in darkness, we are not in God.
There are no extenuating circumstances of justifiably hating someone for what they have done to you. Christ loves us so much that while we were still sinners, He died for us. We are called to be in that same light as He was and love those who are still even now offending us. When we are in the light as Christ is in the light, we will see those who offend us, those who hurt us, those who even hate us as Christ sees them: not as enemies, but as people loved so deeply by God that Jesus died for them. Don’t wait for them to repent and apologize. Love them NOW.
We know that our battle is not with those who have offended us. Our battle is spiritual and we are at war with the evil spirits that fuel hatred, jealousy, enmity, strife, and a host of other sinful behaviors that cause people to offend each other. In the light, we can see to fight the enemy that binds up people that are precious to God.
In the Light we CAN and WILL LOVE EVERYONE as Christ LOVES US, and we will fight for their freedom as hard as we fight for our own!
Truth In Red Letters 