Loving Your Neighbor as YourselfSample

Helpful perspectives when loving your neighbor is hard, #3

On this earth, we will often face unrighteousness. We have to endure injustice without taking revenge. But that’s not to say that the guilty will be cleared and evil will triumph. On the contrary. We need not take revenge ourselves, for God will judge righteously at the end of time. He won’t forget about the evil done to us. He will repay.

When John describes one of his heavenly visions, he tells about souls of those who have been slain for the Word of God. They cry out: “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” (Revelation 6:10). They still have to wait till the number of believers is complete, but God’s judgment will certainly come.

That’s the third helpful perspective, besides the perspectives of our being forgiven ourselves and our seeking other people’s eternal well-being. God won’t let injustice go on forever. At the end of time, “God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil” (Ecclesiastes 12:14).

Does this perspective help you to leave judgment to God, and to love your enemy instead of taking revenge yourself?