How can you love people when they are constantly saying BAD things about you? Matthew 5:44 tells us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. Now I will admit that is a very tall order for most of us. It is very easy for the flesh to gain control in this type of situation and get downright ugly. You know what I am talking about here. We have all experienced this type of pain and when the attack is upon our family or us personally we want to retaliate. Rumors, gossip and slander is extremely damaging to everyone involved. There is rarely any facts associated with the malicious lies. As a pastor's wife I have had to face these challenges repeatedly but God is always there to encourage me to press onward to the Kingdom. He is my Rock and my Salvation!
Honestly I feel very sorry for people who find happiness in hurting others. I pray for my enemies daily. They need Christ and until they find the true meaning of serving Him they will continue to be Secret Agents for the enemy, constantly on a mission digging up or creating something new and juicy daily about somebody. It' s amazing how these folks say so many horrible things about people thinking it will never get back to those they are criticizing. Then they embrace those folks they have been scrutinizing all week on Sunday and act like their best friend. What's with that????? It sickens my heart to hear of people working so hard to destroy God's Kingdom. If only they would redirect that energy in building up the church and God's people. Wow! Many of our churches would be involved in building programs because they would be bursting at the seams.
As Christians we must strive every day to be more like Christ in all areas of our lives. If that means separating ourselves from people who are constantly tearing down God's people and the Kingdom, we need to do it. We become like those we hang out with so we need to be very careful when selecting our friends. Pray daily for those who can't seem to find any good in anyone. Many times I don't think these people realize what they are doing. They see themselves as victims and don't recognize the sin they are involved in. Satan is deceptive and a liar.
When things are said about us it does bring pain and it is discouraging but we need to focus on the God we serve. Our relationship with Christ is all about pleasing Him not man. People will always talk - no matter what. Don't allow the enemy to consume your mind with empty chatter. Think about how much we lift up the enemy when we worry and fret about what others are saying about us. We don't read our Bibles or pray because we are heavily burdened with this garbage. Who wins in that situation?
God commands us to love our enemies. He didn't place that scripture in the Bible because He needed to fill pages. As Christians we must model that in our lives. The truth eventually will come forth and God is bigger than all the deception and lies of this world. When we come to the place in our lives where we can finally give it all to Him we will discover that He will take care of it in His own timing. And you know what? He will do a much better job at it than we can!
DEBORAH SHANK *** Ministering, Coaching and Mentoring to inspire others to live large for Christ.
Thank you for addressing this. It has been one of the most difficult things about ministry! When we first started out in ministry 20 years ago we were so naive when we served on a staff at church. It didn't occur to us that someone would not support/may dislike our Senior Pastors or try to get an "in" with their staff to start a power struggle. We are loyal and assumed all are. Wrong!
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, after co-pastoring with my dear husband, I see more clearly! Being called/credentialed myself brought on new enemies. I know it is because of the enmity between the woman and Satan but it is still painful to be treated wrongly. Surprisingly, women were harsher than men. The greatest lessons in loving our enemies come from the "glass house" and ministry experience. There's nothing like it!