Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. – 1 Peter 4:8
Somebody who recently was burned by a family member in a ponzi scheme recently asked me how to deal with that family member. I said coldheartedly, “Call the police and have him imprisoned.” Then the person said to me, “How can you advocate that position? You’re a pastor! I once heard that Jesus said to forgive seventy-seven times.” Therein lies the dilemma– rectifying the personal pain and hurt caused by another person’s mistake or intentions and the command by Jesus to forgive despite through an act of unconditional love. It is the one thing God exemplifies throughout human history and the hardest thing to emulate.
If you or I could so easily forgive through unconditional love, we would be like God. But we can’t. So how do we navigate that; especially in light of passages like 1st Peter 4:8 that speaks to us from the perspective of one who has been hurt and betrayed by people closest to you?
At the end of the day forgiving others or loving people who hurt us comes down to what we are personally able to swallow and weather, as an individual facing the very person/people who hurt us physically, emotionally or mentally, we can “get over” a particular transgression or series of transgressions. It is this very explanation that seems to be so weak for those of us who have been hurt and the impossible achievement that separates us from God.
There are two steps to loving unconditionally in light of mistakes or sins committed against you. The first step is to put your life in perspective. What we see in this chapter of 1st Peter is when we put life in perspective, that is to know the “end is near,” we find ourselves able to better steward God’s grace because of the certain judgment that awaits us. So let’s be clear: we love unconditionally those who sin against us because we’re not better than them in regard to the emotional atrocity they caused us. We, in most likelihood, committed those same sins against somebody else and walked away like nothing happened because we were forgiven.
The second step is to intend to do good. This step always pains me the most. It pains me because I know the intentions of people who sin and make mistakes around me weren’t good; and here I am trying to do good by them. It is totally unfair, like we are allowing them to walk all over us. Not at all. Our good intentions do not necessarily equate to forgetting the sins against us; rather they have the sinner’s well being in mind when we confront them to set the record straight.
As people who faithfully believe God covered our mistakes and our transgressions against Him by the sacrifice and blood of his only son, Jesus, we have to find a way to love unconditionally through the mistakes and even up to the point of covering the sins of those who betray us. The implications will undoubtedly send waves of shock through a callous and unloving world. In fact, the covering of sins past is just the thing that launched the Christian movement in the first place. We forget that sometimes in our achievement based culture.
We did not earn forgiveness and salvation. We were gifted it by God through an unconditional love. Let’s cover the sins of people who sin against us through our unconditional faith in God who unconditionally loves.
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