“God please help the people hurting me,” I prayed.
God has so amazingly, blessedly, mercifully, and miraculously been transforming me over the years. I don’t want to hurt those who hurt me as I once did. I don’t want vengeance. I don’t want to feel sorry for myself. I don’t want to hold onto hurt and bitterness. I don’t want to gossip and slander them. I want to forgive them. And, more than anything, I want to love them, bless them, do good to them, and pray for them as Jesus tells us to do. And I want to repent when I fall short in all this. I want to love the way God commands us to love.
I have always been very sensitive, and I get worn out by seemingly how often people hurt me these days. With the world falling apart, with less and less love and more and more evil on this earth, and given my exceeding love for and devotion to the Lord and my calling as an evangelist on the road for Jesus, I am at pretty high risk of being treated badly.
But God amazingly is teaching me how to deny self, take up my cross, follow Him, and to love the very people who are hurting me. I find myself desperate now that those who hurt me know the love of God, turn to Jesus Christ as Lord, have a forever relationship with God instead of spending eternity in hell and the lake of fire apart from Him, have their needs met on this earth, fulfill the Lord’s will for their lives, and above all else become and remain totally devoted followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. I want them to enjoy the love of Jesus for eternity and to love and worship and praise and honor and glorify God forevermore.
Sure, it’s really hard to be hurt. I cry sometimes over how people treat me. But I have learned to bring my tears, heart, and hurt to the Lord for healing and comfort and to cry out to the Lord in prayer for those who hurt me. And to love and help and bless them with the love of God.
Friend, with all my heart, I beg you to do this. Humble yourself, bring any hurt to the Lord for healing and comfort, repent of any sin in your heart, words, and mouth, forgive the people who hurt you, and love them with the love of Jesus, bless them, do good to them, and pray for them. This, friend, is the way of the Lord. The way we are called to live. For the glory of Christ, yes it is!
“Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.” Luke 9:23
“You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” Matthew 5:43-45 NKJV