HOW CAN YOU LOVE SOMEONE IF THAT PERSON HAS HURT YOU?
Sakkie Parsons
Translated from Afrikaans: “Hoe kan mens iemand liefhê wat jou seergemaak het?”
Someone wrote to me as follows:
How can you love someone if that person has hurt you? How does it work?
I would like to talk to you about the meaning of ‘love’ today.
But I also want to mention here at the beginning that you must be able to forgive someone who has hurt you from the bottom of your heart, as the Word teaches us:
Jesus is telling us the parable in Matthew 18 from verse 21, which you can enjoy reading about the man whose debt was written off by the king, but who did not want to write off his fellow man’s debt. The King finds out and the man is then handed over to be tortured until all his debts are paid – and then Jesus says:
MAT 18:35 “My heavenly Father will also do the same to [every one of] you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart.”
Forgiveness comes easier when you think about how many times, we hurt our dearest Lord Jesus so deeply and this after He suffered so much for us.
Forgiveness also comes easier if you remember, that you have also hurt other people.
But I would like to start by mentioning something that many people have wrong, and therefore cannot practice love as we should understand it from our Lord’s Word, and how He want us to work on and to live out the right kind of love.
Many people, and I almost wrote most people, understand love as an emotion – but love is certainly not an emotion.
Love is, to put it this way, an action, or if you like, a work. Something you must do and for most of us, a very hard work.
Let me explain briefly.
I can’t come to you and tell you: “Please be sad.”
You are not going to be sad, simply because at that moment you have nothing to be sad about, because sadness is, to put it this way, an emotion.
The same goes for joy, excitement, or anger, for example. Because it’s all emotions.
Love is of course full of emotion, but love itself is an action / work, and sometimes a very hard work.
Then of course you get many categories in love.
Like love for our Lord, love for your partner/spouse, which is not the same as love for our Lord.
Love for your children, which is not the same love as for your partner.
Love for your neighbour, which of course is not the same as one of the above types of love.
Now, because I live according to the Word and have the Word as my highest authority, let’s see according to the Word if I am right in my view of love and then we look, as I call it, at our Lord Jesus’s law of love for all His followers. I use the first example of 3 that I could have used from the Gospels.
MAT 22:36-37
36“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37And Jesus replied to him, “‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ (this is a command/order, not an option)
This is an assignment/order, which you take, make yours and with the loving grace and help of the Holy Spirit always work on, because you strive to have an even deeper love- relationship with our Lord.
MAT 22:38-39 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39The second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF [that is, unselfishly seek the best or higher good for others].’
MAT 22:40 “The whole Law and the [writings of the] Prophets depend on these two commandments.”
That is why my great hero Paul could on occasion, in his proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus, write about Jesus’ law of love as follows:
ROM 13:8-10
8Owe nothing to anyone except to love and seek the best for one another; for he who [unselfishly] loves his neighbor has fulfilled the [essence of the] law [relating to one’s fellowman]. 9The commandments, “YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY, YOU SHALL NOT MURDER, YOU SHALL NOT STEAL, YOU SHALL NOT COVET,” and any other commandment are summed up in this statement: “YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.” 10Love does no wrong to a neighbor [it never hurts anyone]. Therefore [unselfish] love is the fulfillment of the Law.
I share with you the following, which is and will remain a mystery to many, if they do not change their outlook.
The Word say:
1COR 13:13
13And now there remain: faith [abiding trust in God and His promises], hope [confident expectation of eternal salvation], love [unselfish love for others growing out of God’s love for me], these three [the choicest graces]; but the greatest of these is love.
Do you see what our Lord has written here for you and me?
Faith in our Lord is very important to Him, but my love for Him is for much more important to Him, than even my faith in Him.
1COR 13:13 And now faith, hope, love remain—these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Hope in our Lord is very, very important to Him, but my love for Him is for Him far more important, than even my hope in Him.
1COR 13:13 And now faith, hope, love remain—these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Many religious people have an abundance of almost all aspects of a child of God – but because they do not truly love our Lord and love for their fellow man, they live, instead of holy, without even realizing it, according to our Lord’s standard, very religious – but very far from God.
Let us just reflect, and I will mention something additional because it is just as incredibly important that we understand love correctly.
For me, love is not an emotion.
For me, love is an action that is accompanied by emotion.
Sadness is a feeling.
If I say to you: “Be sad” you cannot just be sad.
I cannot tell you to be sad because sadness is not an action you can do.
Sadness is an emotion, which is aroused because of something that happen to you.
Someone can’t tell me that I should be sad or happy now if there isn’t something at that moment to make me sad or happy, because sadness and joy are emotions.
Jesus say that we must love our Lord and He say that we must love our neighbour.
Jesus is giving us a command.
He instructs us, to love our Lord and our neighbours, yes even our enemies, as I will show you.
This is something I must work on – and I can work on it, because love is not an emotion,
but a literal action that may involve feelings such as affection and/or attraction but does not necessarily have to be accompanied by it.
For love, I must, so to speak, take action. It’s not just going to happen, as emotions such as sadness and joy, for example, awaken in me because of some things happen to me.
We have, as I have shown you, received an order from our Lord. It is not even an option for the child of God, which I may or may not exercise as a child of God.
I must, as I have already shown, love the Lord my God and my neighbour as myself.
Jesus will not give me an assignment that I cannot carry out.
He gave me an assignment and I must act and work on.
The more I work on this assignment from my Lord to me, the better all other things in my life will be and will improve, where it relates to my God and my neighbour, and so I will also live more and more holier.
Listen to what Jesus is saying about the love that is an action, a doing, or a work, because Jesus put it very strongly on occasion.
Matthew 5:44-48
44But I say to you, love [that is, unselfishly seek the best or higher good for] your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45so that you may [show yourselves to] be the children of your Father who is in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on those who are evil and on those who are good, and makes the rain fall on the righteous [those who are morally upright] and the unrighteous [the unrepentant, those who oppose Him].
46For if you love [only] those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do that? 47And if you greet only your brothers [wishing them God’s blessing and peace], what more [than others] are you doing? Do not even the Gentiles [who do not know the Lord] do that?
48You, therefore, will be perfect [growing into spiritual maturity both in mind and character, actively integrating godly values into your daily life], as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Did you see?
We can even be perfect in this matter if we try hard enough.
Jesus would never tell you and me that we must be something we cannot be.
Matthew 5:48 You, therefore, will be perfect [growing into spiritual maturity both in mind and character, actively integrating godly values into your daily life], as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Of course, I, Sakkie, like many others, still fall far short concerning this matter.
But because I know what our Lord expect of me, I put everything in, to find more and more love in my heart for my Lord and my neighbour, so that I am more holy in my behaviour towards my Lord and my neighbour.
Listen to what our Lord is saying in His Word:
1 COR 13:1-3 The Excellence Of Love
1If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love [for others growing out of God’s love for me], then I have become only a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal [just an annoying distraction]. 2And if I have the gift of prophecy [and speak a new message from God to the people], and understand all mysteries, and [possess] all knowledge; and if I have all [sufficient] faith so that I can remove mountains, but do not have love [reaching out to others], I am nothing. 3If I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it does me no good at all.
Have you seen? – No matter how you live and what you testify – What do our Lord see as
He look at me, and I don’t have the love for Him and my neighbour in my heart?
1COR 13:2 … and I do not have love, then I would be nothing.
Wow!
How terrible it must be, when God look at me and according to Him, He see nothing.
Did you also notice?
No matter what I do.
How often I sit in church.
How much money I give to whomever or whatever.
How religious I am.
If I do not have love for my God and my fellow man, the Word says, that everything I
consider sacred in my life, has no meaning for our Lord.
1 COR 13:3 … and I do not have love, then it would profit me nothing.
To summarize then how I understand it:
If I have truly accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour, I also have this certain knowledge:
I may not live as holy in my life as, for example, my great hero Paul, but it would also be impossible for me to live without love.
Because –
GAL 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ [that is, in Him I have shared His crucifixion]; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body I live by faith [by adhering to, relying on, and completely trusting] in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me
Therefore, for me personally, it is simply impossible not to love my God and my fellow man, because Jesus’ Spirit live in me.
So – Have you really accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?
Well, then you also have this certain knowledge, that you are a child of God. Because it is written:
JOHN 1:12 But to as many as did receive and welcome Him, He gave the right [the authority, the privilege] to become children of God, that is, to those who believe in (adhere to, trust in, and rely on) His name—
With His Spirit in you, you will now live out His law of love and the more you do it, the holier will your life be.
Other writings that I wrote, which connect to what I have just shared with you, as well as on ‘Forgiveness’ are available on request:
The Topics are:
- Who Is My Neighbour?
- Love is the most important instruction – Part 1 and 2
- Forgiveness
- Jesus prayed for His murderers and died for them on the Cross
Sakkie
Email: bediening@sakkieparsons.co.za
Website: www.sakkieparsons.co.za
Cell: 083 457 6669
Jude 1:24-25 To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy, to the only God our Saviour be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.
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