There are times when God’s Word pierces our way of thinking and we realise afresh just how radical the Gospel is. Sunday morning was one such example of this, as Dave preached from Luke 6:27-38.

It’s easy to gloss over these verses with the contempt of familiarity, but if we are honest, Jesus’s command to “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you” (Luke 6:27-31) does not sit easily with our fallen natures.

In the 1960s, Martin Luther King spoke out against racial inequality and was hated for doing so. On one occasion, his house was burned down by a group of white men who didn’t like his message and it would have been all too easy for the blacks he represented to retaliate in like manner. Martin Luther King wanted, however, for racial equality to be won through peaceful means. He knew what it meant to love his enemies and to do good to those who mistreated him.

The natural human response to those who hate us and mistreat us is to ‘get our own backs’ but this is not the response Jesus is calling for here. Revenge may look great on the cinema screen, but it is usually as harmful to ourselves as it is to those on whom we practise.

God’s way of doing things is different. We are called to consider others. We are called to love our enemies and to bless those who curse us, to do good to those who mistreat us. We are called to be imitators of God, His representatives and His ambassadors on this earth.

How do we do this? It’s certainly not easy. It’s not a response we are going to naturally feel. But perhaps we need to understand that the choices we face in life are just that: choices. It’s not all about feelings.

Love is the decision to do right, even when you have been wronged; to do good, even bad is done to you; to bless, even when you are cursed; to forgive, even when you are condemned; to care, even when you are not cared for.

Love is not what we feel. Rather, it is the good we decide to do and then go on to do. We may do it with reluctance; we may do it with tears; but we do it because we are convinced that God’s way of doing things is better than our fallen way of dealing with people.

The ‘Golden Rule’ says ‘Do to others as you would have them do to you’. This is a very simple and basic way of determining how we ought to act towards others. It’s also linked to the principle ‘the judgment you give is the judgment you will receive’. We need to forgive, because we ourselves need lots of forgiveness. We need to bless, because we need God’s blessing. And as we love our enemies, so love, rather than revenge, will come back to us. What we sow, we will definitely reap.

Moreoever, if we still feel that this way of living is beyond us – and we can only do it with God’s help and through His grace – then as always we have the example of Jesus to show us that it is, indeed, possible:

“Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.’He committed no sin,and no deceit was found in his mouth.’ When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. For you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.” (1 Peter 2:21-25)