The only healthy way in which I can respond to anything is in love. There are many ways in which I can choose to respond, of course, but I must only respond in love. This is absolutely first and foremost in the priorities of a believer, unless they have gotten knocked off course.
If your enemy knows that you know this, then he will try to redefine your perceptions of what love really is. He will cause you to question your conscience on the matter of treating others with equity. He will attempt to persuade you that offense is okay.
Offense is never okay. The only unavoidable offense is the kind where you did absolutely everything you could to act in love, and they reacted out of a place of pain, and that kind is something that you cannot control. All other offense can be absolutely avoided, though, simply by choosing to, as a rule, act in love.
As a father, I can tell you that my teenage son often takes issue with me, when I am speaking to him from a place of authority about behavior that requires correction. I was lamenting over this to a friend of mine some time ago. I was telling them about a recent incident where my kid dismissed everything I was saying outright, on the grounds that I was “just being a jerk.”
Instead of agreeing with my overall disdain for this response, my friend said, “Yeah, but you probably were being a jerk, though.”
Instantly, I felt conviction. I had replayed the incident in my mind, and observed my own attitude and tone of voice. I realized I’d been speaking out of frustration, and in a condescending, patronizing tone. I hadn’t been staying in that place of peace, where love is the most important thing.
Do we wanna be really real here? At that moment I realized that, an embarrassingly large percentage of the time, when I am engaged in a conflict of any kind, I am acting mostly from a place of fear, and not from a place of peace and security, and this is so backwards for a believer. It’s tragic, really.
Thankfully, it is easy to correct! The source of those bedrock characteristics of faith (peace, security, and so on — the source of these itself, I say) has been planted solidly in the soil of my heart. It has taken root, and there has fruit been borne of it; it is an integral part of who I am, way deep down. It is the very core of who I am.
I must be careful in all things to consider the place of prominence that should be given to the Christ in me. I must allow Him to come first, in all things. I must let this mind be in me. And it’s really not an “I must” kind of thing. It’s something I am given the unspeakably wonderful privilege of enjoying! However uncomfortable it may seem to my flesh, however disoriented it may cause me to become while I am still unused to doing it in a certain way, its practice will inevitably lead me into the greatest possible place of personal fruition and fulfillment. It will guide me into the becoming of the best possible version of myself.
This is a huge deal.