From time to time we all have adversarial relationships in our life. We might even call some people "enemies". It could be a co-worker who you just don't get along with; a boss who takes all the credit and cast all the blame; the grouchy neighbor who keeps letting their dog poop in your yard; someone at church who just gets on your nerves; or it might even be someone who lives under your roof (spouse, parent, or child). For whatever reason we sometimes get sideways in our relationships with certain people and no matter what we do it never seems to improve. In fact, maybe its so bad your not sure it can ever be repaired, and so you've decided just to avoid the individual in question and have a "non-relationship". That strategy might work in certain instances for the short term, but is that really what God desires for us to do? Based upon what Jesus says in Matthew 5, I think there are some things we can do to possibly improve these relationships and bring God glory in the process. Check out this passage...
Matthew 5:43-44 "Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;"
Our natural tendency in adversarial relationships is to return the behavior to them in kind. You treat me bad and I'll give it right back to you. You hate me, then I'll hate you even more! Jesus puts the kibosh on this strategy. He tells us to go the opposite direction - he wants us to love our enemies. If fact, he gives us three things to do in order to display this love...
1) Pray for them. Turning these relationships around starts right here. Pray for them (and not just that God would kill them!). Earnestly ask God to work in their life and make himself known to them. Remember, hurting people, hurt people. If they are mistreating you most likely it flows from a place of hurt in their life. Ask God to give you a sensitivity to their hurt; to soften your heart toward them, and the ability to love them like He does. It's really hard to love someone who is mistreating you and so we need God's power to rest upon us and give us a supernatural ability to love.
2) Bless them. This has to do with the words we use. Don't get pulled into a verbal jousting match. That never solves anything. Verbal warfare is driven by pride and quickly escalates to heights we never thought imaginable. Chose to bless them with your words rather than curse them. Speak to them in a positive way. Find good things to say to them and about them. Refuse to engage in gossip about them with others. James tells us that taming the tongue is hard, but with God's help we can choose to bless rather than curse.
3) Do good. It's not enough to just refrain from lobbing verbal grenades at people or to avoid them in order to pretend like everything is ok. God tells us He wants us to actively seek an opportunity to do good for them. Show them the love of Jesus in a practical way. This is the proactive part of love. Don't just pray for them. Don't just choose to speak differently to and about them. Go above and beyond and perform some act of love in their life. You never know it may be the only love anyone has ever shown to them.
In Romans 12:17-21 Paul address the topic of adversarial relationships. He echoes the advice of Jesus and tells us when we love our enemies we heap coals of fire upon their head. That sounds pretty good! Unfortunately, he's not talking about literal coals, but rather the coals of conviction. When we attempt to overcome evil with good, the party in question will feel bad for how they've treated us. A word of caution here - our goal is not to make them feel bad. Our goal is to do good and to show the love of Jesus. Also, people tend to react one of two ways toward coals of conviction - they resist/reject it and the result is even more outrageous behavior; or they melt under it and become softer toward us and hopefully toward God. Either way, their reaction is not our business. We are striving to love them and do good to them regardless of the outcome and benefit to us. We simply desire to stand blameless before God saying that we did everything within our power to live peaceable with all people.
If you find yourself in an adversarial relationship I encourage you to try Jesus' three-fold strategy. I think you'll be amazed by the impact it will have on your situation. If nothing else you'll be able to stand before God with a clear conscience.
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