Scripture

Jeremiah 22:3 (NLT)

This is what the LORD says: Be fair-minded and just. Do what is right! Help those who have been robbed; rescue them from their oppressors. Quit your evil deeds! Do not mistreat foreigners, orphans, and widows. Stop murdering the innocent!

Consider

Through his prophet Jeremiah, God describes his social policy for right living among his people. The theme is familiar and repeated throughout the Old and New Testaments: Be just, righteous, and merciful. Be ready to help those who need your help and never be the one to add to another’s misery.

If you are having difficulty with the idea of forgiving someone who has hurt you, you might try recasting your situation in the terms God describes. Consider how your offender might be viewed as one who has been “robbed” or “oppressed,” and you as the one who can help him or her.

Different Bible translations offer alternative descriptions for the one who has been “robbed,” such as the spoiled, the wronged, the victim of exploiters, the one who has been seized or cheated. The plundered. Likewise, the “oppressor” can be translated as the one who robs, attacks, exploits, cheats, extorts, or treats the victim badly; the one who makes life hard for the victim. The false challenger.

Does this oppressor sound familiar?

The author of 1 Peter describes him as “your enemy the devil” who “prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (5:8). Scripture depicts this enemy elsewhere as adversary, accuser, destroyer, lying spirit, power of darkness, liar and father of lies, tempter, wicked one, murderer, prince of demons, and the spirit that works in the children of disobedience. Every person born on this earth is prey to this cunning and merciless adversary. No one escapes the damage that evil perpetrates. We all bear scars from our own sin as well as from the hurtful acts of others, sometimes breaking or crippling us in ways that make healthy relationships difficult or impossible.

We can’t know what makes people act the way they do. Unlike God, we can’t see into their hearts to determine motives; we don’t know all the life experiences that have shaped their character and taught them how to deal with others. Our idea of justice may shift when we consider how those who offend us may themselves have been robbed, cheated, exploited, or “spoiled.” How might their concept of love or goodness have been twisted, or their dignity or innocence taken from them? How might their hope have been stolen and replaced with fear, hatred, or desperation?

When facing that person we cannot forgive, we can choose whether to respond as just one more oppressor or to allow compassion to temper us. With God’s help, we might offer mercy instead and the hope of Christ, who bears the only Name in the universe that can take on the evil of this world and win.

Pray

FATHER, it’s difficult for me to feel compassion and mercy toward someone who has been cruel. However, because you require justice and righteousness from me, I ask for grace and courage to obey. Help me to recast people who wound and offend me so that I can see them as prey to the evil influences of a world under Satan’s rule. Keep me from adding to their misery with punishing or vengeful acts of my own. Instead, let me be a help and a light for the sake of your kingdom.

Reflect

Isaiah 58:6-9; Zechariah 7:8-9; James 2:12-13

Ponder

In what way has the evil of this world stolen something from you? How has your loss affected you?