Recently I was meditating upon God’s word, how Jesus encourages us not to worry about life issues but put our trust in God. How he tells us to turn the other cheek when we are smitten and go two miles when someone forces us to go one mile. I started asking myself of what essence all this is. Deep within me I have always sought answers to such questions from God and I have come to learn when one asks God a question, He answers.

In answer to my question I was made to think of a time when someone hurt me really bad. The person made me suffer just because it was within her power to do so even though I had valued her so much. As a result I was devastated and felt like God should punish her for me because he says I should not take matters in my own hands. Little did I know I was becoming bitter. Even though I acted humble, avoiding strife outward, deep within me there was the strife that wanted to see the individual punished. 

The bible requires us to pray for our enemies. So I would do this out of obedience but deep within me I still used to feel the bitterness and the desire to see her face the judgment for what she had done to me.

All that while I never knew that it was me that God was interested in. God wanted me to realize the kind of spirit I had and to put off the clothes of hypocrisy. The Holy Spirit is not a spirit of bad feelings. He is a spirit of all good feelings exhibited by the fruits He bears which are peace, joy, goodness, love, patience, faithfulness, kindness, gentleness.

Whenever you have bad feelings you are suppressing the Holy Spirit and exalting your carnal self and that had been my lifestyle. As a Christian, when Christ asks that you turn the other cheek, he does not mean that you do it to feel more righteous or to accord a higher judgment or damnation to your rival. Christs really wants you to love your enemy, he means it when he says love your enemy, he doesn’t want you to be ruled by bitterness, anger and revenge but instead be ruled by the above-named fruits of the Holy Spirit. 

Romans 6:16     Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?

We, therefore, have been given the power to live a Holy Life by submitting ourselves to the Holy Spirit.

Forgiveness is one of the biggest teachings and commandments given to us by the Messiah, he says if we do not forgive those who wrong us from the depths of our hearts we are like debtors who have just been forgiven huge debts only to go and put those who owe us to jail till they pay our own debts for us to release them.

Forgiveness is, therefore, an act of release, releasing someone from facing judgement and from having to pay for his sins. God requires all Christians to be forgivers and not to demand revenge. When you release evil feelings by consciously letting someone who deserves to be judged off the hook, you create room in your heart for other good things.

Without true forgiveness, we become hypocrites full of bitterness who see only the specs in other peoples eyes when the log of failing love is in our own eyes and this becomes obvious in our words and actions with time. For love overcomes always, it is selfless and through love we must overcome evil with good. It is not an easy path for the Christian, but God promises us help through the Holy Spirit.

Therefore when you pray for good things for one person and wish bad things for another it is time to think twice. The essence of giving the other cheek is dying to yourself and letting Christ live in you so that with the love of Christ in you can settle the dispute by being the humble one even as Christ became humble to settle our dispute with God. It is so that you might open a door through love that will make the other person realize their err and the freedom which your heart possesses through the peace you possess which they cannot disturb by whichever means they choose but only admire that kind of freedom.

To be the light of the world or the salt of the world we have to be different with feelings of peace, love and joy never leaving us. This is the saltness we possess to which we call others if we ourselves turn to be hateful warmongers who go at each other and those who wrong us with arsenals full of wrath and hidden bitterness to what good are we calling others?

I appreciate and thank God that I had to go through that to realize that my heart has to be free from all bad feelings and my mind free from all bad thoughts, only then can I be free from iniquity. 

Looking kind and polite outward when you are tormented by desire for revenge, anger and bitterness inside is just comparable to what Christ called beautiful sepulchres on the outside filled with dead bones on the inside. Trying to act right by turning the other cheek only to go with indignation at home is just like washing the outside of a cup and leaving the inside dirty. As you give the other cheek, surrender also your bad feelings there, cry unto God till you have nothing but love, joy, peace, goodness, kindness and all other fruits of the Holy Spirit in your heart. That is the essence of being filled with the Holy Spirit.

The kind of Spirit we have is gentle and full of goodness, we, therefore, have been given freedom from all bad ways, thoughts and feelings through him which we should embrace by being humble and submitting to him and his guidance. That is why the bible teaches us that we need to submit to God in order to deny the devil chance in our lives.

James 4:7 Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

You can see the transformation James had undergone by learning the kind of spirit a Christian has by looking at the verses below.

Luke 9:51-56 51 Now it came to pass, when the time had come for Him to be received up, that He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem, 52 and sent messengers before His face. And as they went, they entered a village of the Samaritans, to prepare for Him. 53 But they did not receive Him, because His face was set for the journey to Jerusalem. 54 And when His disciples James and John saw this, they said, “Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, [j]just as Elijah did?”

55 But He turned and rebuked them, [k]and said, “You do not know what manner of spirit you are of. 56 [l]For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them.” And they went to another village.

Do you understand what manner of spirit you belong to?

It is so good being able to pray for your enemies with passion and love, like Jesus Christ said, “Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” when he was being nailed on the cross and as Stephen asked God not to hold those who were stoning him to death against that sin. This is the epitome of love, when there is only love and nothing else.

Therefore when you pray for someone who has hurt you submit to God for strength, get the guidance of the Holy Spirit and you will truly find a reason to love them, then pray out of that love. Don’t say one thing with your mouth and mean another within your heart. When you are still bitter, the problem is still with you as a Christian and you should ask God to show you the log in your eyes first. It is only out of true love that you can clearly see the speck in your brother’s eyes. Only your love can make them trust you enough to allow you to blow it away so that they can see clearly their mistakes. If you cannot therefore be complete, how do you expect them to be complete?