Loving the Hard to Love

By: Robert Jacobs 

Let’s face it, there are people in our life who, for various reasons, are hard to love. With the holidays upon us, I am sure that many of you have thought about what it will mean to interact with these hard to love people, particularly those in your family. Often, we believe (at least subconsciously anyway) that those who have wounded us deeply deserve to be as miserable as they have made us, supposedly fulfilling our desire for justice. 

But what do you do if that person seeks forgiveness? What do you do when they attempt to restore a broken relationship? What if they yield to Jesus Himself and find the peace and wholeness that He offers? If they abide in Christ, they will have their shame, sin, and reproach washed away by His blood. Will you be happy for them? Will you shout for joy that they have found wholeness, or will you be bitter that they have the peace of Christ that they do not deserve? 

I was the latter. My father and I had a rough relationship which resulted in my receiving substantial emotional wounds. Toward the end of his life, my father became a faithful follower of Christ, abiding in Him and finding the peace and purpose that can only come from His hand. I, however, was bitterly implacable. I literally said to my wife, “Do you know who this man is? He does not deserve the peace of Christ in his life!” I believed that his sin disqualified him from the Grace of Christ and that no one should have anything to do with “that man.”

We see a similar situation in one of the healings that Jesus performs. Upon entering Jericho, a blind beggar named Bartimaeus heard that Jesus was passing by and he cried out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” (Mk 10:47) The crowd following Jesus turned to Bartimaeus and rebuked him, telling him to be quiet (Mk 10:48). In other words, those who were following Jesus did not think Bartimaeus was worthy to talk with Christ. After all, he was blind, a disability that this society believed to be the result of a moral impediment (Jn 9:9).

Are we this crowd? Are we those “following” Jesus only to preclude those who need him the most? Sure, we may say that we want the lost and the hurting to find Christ, but does that include those who have wounded us? 

As the story with Bartimaeus continues, Christ does hear him and calls him to Himself. After this, those following Jesus changed their toon, telling Bartimaeus to “cheer up” because Christ had called him. Strange how their attitude only changes after Jesus rebukes them through His actions. 

There is a lesson here for us. Just as our sin does not preclude us from following Christ, so also does other’s sin not prevent them…even those who have wounded us deeply. If we are honest, none of us deserve to follow Christ. From the moment of our conception, we were all rebels and traitors against the kingdom of God (Ps 51:5). 

By the grace of God, I began to make peace with my father shortly before he died. Yet if I had celebrated his embracing of Christ rather than rejected it, much more healing could have taken place. 

But what about you? Is there someone hard to love in your family—someone who has hurt you badly—that is trying to restore a relationship with you, yet you will not allow them to? It could be that God is calling you to allow that person to tangibly experience the forgiveness of God in their life by you forgiving them. 

This is not to say that we do not need to have healthy boundaries with our family, and by no means do I think you should place yourself in danger. However, I do think that when we correctly remember how much we have been forgiven by Christ, it is much easier to offer forgiveness to others and celebrate a reconciled relationship. If we forget how much we have been forgiven, though, we become hard and bitter, claiming our woundedness as a kind of identity. 

This Christmas love the hard to love. Seek to be a good gift to others rather than looking for others to be a good gift to you. Because with the Spirit in you, you are indeed a good gift to everyone around you. 

Hope for the Holidays

by Bonnie Scasta, Women's Ministry Director

The holidays are said to be the most wonderful time of the year. And for many, there is magic and wonder all around. 

For others that are impacted by sexual and relational brokenness, however, the holidays are filled with pain and loss. This time of year—traditionally filled with merriment and spent with loved ones—is instead lonely and quiet. Because of deep family divisions, unmet expectations, cruel words, and/or being forgotten, the celebration of Our Promised Savior is often over shadowed by sorrow and deep despair.

Though families may be broken, wounds run deep, expectations are repeatedly crushed, and people who should come through continue to fail, there is hope to be found this holiday season! 

As we approach Christmas, keep these three truths close to your heart:

God sees and cares about your pain.

Grief and loss have very little place in our culture. We are often taught through our experiences, in particularly the reactions of those closest to us, that our pain is to be shoved aside and hidden.  We believe the lie that there is no space or time to be sad over the broken things in our life or our family.  

However, over and over again we see in scripture that God sees and hears the cries of his people in pain (Ex 2:23-25).  He is not asking you to shut it down, avoid it, or act like everything is ok.  Instead, God is asking you to bring even the most painful things to him. When we do, we can be confident that just as Jesus wept over the loss of his friend, he will weep with us as well. 

^“And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.” – Ex. 2:24-25

God is near to the brokenhearted. 

Not only does God care about our pain, he is near to it.  His presence makes all the difference (Ex. 33:3-4).  If you are brokenhearted over the loss of a relationship, over the strife between you and a loved one, at the consequences of your own sin, or for any other reason, God is near.  Ask him to reveal his special nearness through these difficult circumstances and believe that you are not alone, regardless of how alone you may feel.

“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” – Ps 34:18

There are no hopeless situations.

Jesus himself was raised from the dead.  He is in the very business of bringing dead things to life.  The disciples thought all was lost after Jesus was crucified and many returned to their old lives or hid scared.  Jesus, however, had other plans and it changed history.  He came to set the captives free, bind those that are brokenhearted, and bring gladness to those who mourn.  Set your hope on Him and see what he does!

“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor, he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion— to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.” –  Is 61:1-3

Be encouraged that no matter what ashes you may be mourning, our savior has gladness and beauty to come.   As you take your pain, sorrow, or loneliness to Him and rest in his deep, abiding love that is near, there is great hope regardless of what the days ahead hold. 

The Leper in the Tree

by Robert Jacobs

My 14-month-old daughter loves to dance. Though still fine tuning her balance and coordination, she dances (as the saying goes) like no one is watching. Although she will dance to anything with a rhythm, including my more spirited readings of Hop on Pop, she prefers the upbeat kid’s songs they play at Sunday school. Snagging a few albums on-line for our dancing pleasure at home, I regularly clear the dance floor in our house for jam sessions that include favorites like “Jesus Loves Me,” “Father Abraham,” and “If You’re Saved and You Know It.”

As we listened and danced one afternoon, we came across a song I had not heard in a long time: “Zacchaeus Was A Wee Little Man.” It’s a silly little song from my childhood that tells the story of a minor character in the Gospel of Luke. Appearing in no other gospel account, the interaction between Zacchaeus and Jesus is a brief, 9 verses that is often glossed over. If not passed over like an appendix to the larger narrative of Luke, people simply remember the story as “the one about that short guy,” as the title of the song indicates. Yet as I listened to the song, I realized that there were many profound truths in Zacchaeus’ story. 

Luke records that as Jesus was passing through Jericho, word of His presence in the city came to the chief tax collector, Zacchaeus. Desiring to see this Jesus that he had heard so much about, Zacchaeus ran out to the street where Christ was passing by. Unfortunately, “he was short [and] could not see over the crowd” (Lk 19:3). Determined to see this holy man he had heard so much about, he ended up climbing a tree to see over the crowd. When Jesus came to the tree, He called out “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today” (Lk 19:5). This shocked the onlookers, for when “the people saw this [they] began to mutter, ‘He (Jesus) has gone to be the guest of a sinner’” (Lk 19:7). 

As I thought about Zacchaeus sitting up in that tree, I realized that he was content to simply see Jesus rather than interact with Him. Though the text does not say so, I am sure he thought he would never be worthy of actually meeting Jesus and talking with Him. And based upon what I know about human nature, I bet he must have thought he did not deserve such an honor because he knew he was stained with sinful actions (see his reaction to Jesus in verse 8). Like a leper keeping his distance, Zacchaeus sat in the tree, grateful to even get the opportunity to see Christ. Yet Jesus was not satisfied with Zacchaeus simply seeing Him. No. He wanted Zacchaeus to experience Him on a personal level. 

Many of us are sitting in our own trees. We think that because of our sin stained hands, Jesus does not want anything to do with us and that we are lucky that we even get to see Him from a distance. However, this is not how Christ works. He is calling out to us as we sit isolated in our trees. He wants us to not simply see Him or know about Him, but to experience Him, to intimately follow Him as His disciple. It is true humanity has a sin problem, yet we must remember that the solution to our sin problem is in the arms of Jesus and nowhere else. 

As holiday decorations begin to fill our homes and churches, remember that the whole point of Christ’s advent was so that he could be Emanuel, God WITH Us. Whenever you see a Christmas tree this season, think of Zacchaeus—the man who was content to simply watch Jesus walk by but that Jesus desired to know personally, calling to him to Himself by name.