I Give You Back to God

This week, a short clip, and a short encouragement. First, the clip:

This is a fairly well known clip in many circles. If you have not seen it, I encourage you to take the 3 1/2 minutes of your day it will take to watch it. Then, I ask you to consider what I have to say.

The question to be answered is very simple: do we as Christians treat those who have wronged us in this way? I ask because it is the Biblical answer is very simple to come up with. In Luke 6:27-31 Jesus states:

“But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. 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."

Is this how we live our faith? In giving and forgiveness so extreme that it changes those around us? Is this how we treat those with different ideas? Is this how we treat our enemies?

It is to this extreme lifestyle that Christians are called. I once read in a commentary something along the lines that it is only common sense that what Jesus is speaking about here is an ideal and not an actual expectation. But there is nothing in the context that shows that, and much of what Jesus said defied and continues to defy the "common sense" of our world today.

So the second question is this: will we as Christians going forward live our lives with such a radical faith that it cannot help but change those who it comes into contact with? Valjean in the clip above was changed by an extreme act of both mercy and giving. How many more could be reached if we, in our actions and reactions to others, did the same? It is what we are called to.

So let us live it, and in so doing take those who we win and give them back to God.