The Extra Mile

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.

C. S. Lewis

Read

Matthew 5:38-42

Think

I don't know anyone who likes to be abused and manipulated. It doesn't really feel good to be treated that way. Yet Jesus tells us that if we are truly following the Law, that we will not retaliate for wrongs against us, that we will always go the extra mile for anyone who asks. Self-preservation leads me to withdraw from an encounter when blows begin, not offer my other cheek. Maybe I would feel differently if I were 6'5", 230 lbs. But, do not resist the evildoer? Call me shag, because that makes me a rug for anyone to walk on.

But this really is what Jesus means to say. If we are truly following the Law, we will not claim our right to retaliate. Do we even have that right, anyway? Though it seems counter-intuitive, God's best for us is to not fight back, to act in generosity to those who want to swindle us out of our coats, to willingly serve above and beyond those who want to enslave us.

That's what Jesus did.

He turned His cheek. He did not seek retaliation. He laid the final vestige of His glory on the ground for soldiers to gamble over. At the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. The only One who truly had the right to come down in retaliation offered His life for the benefit of those who were putting Him to death.

As I take stock of my own life, I see all the ways I claim my right to protect myself. I am stingy. I want what is mine. I want justice for those who wrong me. And my righteousness still exceeds that of the Scribes and Pharisees, not because I always do what is right, but because I am not depending on my own abilities to make myself righteous. Jesus offered Himself as a guarantee of eternal life, and I would rather claim that than any right to retaliation I think I might have.

Pray

Ask God to help you to release your right to retaliation. Pray that He would create in you a dependence on Him that transcends anything men can do to you.

Do

Get rid of the list of people who've wronged you. Let go of revenge. It's not a happy way to live, and it's not God's best for you.