Forgive and Move On

Recently a friend of mine walked away from the Lord. This person stopped coming to church, and stopped answering anyone’s emails from church.
A few of my friends and I began to wonder if Anonymous was alright. This happened back in November.
Well, a few days ago I received an email from Anonymous. In that email, Anonymous told me how much they hated me, how I need to leave them alone, and how ugly I was.
I’d be lying if I said that Anonymous’ words didn’t hurt me, but it was the words they didn’t say that hurt more. What I mean by that is that I read the unwritten words between the lines. The words that say, “I’ve walked away from God, I don’t care what He says, and I want to do whatever I feel like doing!”
Well, later on that night I was praying to God and asking Him what I should do concerning Anonymous’ words. These are some verses that came to mind....
“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. We love because He first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And He has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.” - 1 John 4:7, 11, 19-21
I need to love Anonymous just as God loves us. I also need to continue to pray for them too.
A few days later, I had another friend say that they would probably beat up Anonymous because of the emails that I received.
I told them if I took to heart every mean and cruel word ever said to me; I’d be a very bitter person.
You see, God wants us to forgive and pray for those who do and say cruel things to us.
Ask yourself, what would Jesus do?
Did Jesus get mad and hit back when the guards slapped and beat Him before He was crucified? No!
Did Jesus hold a grudge against the Pharisees when they spread lies about Him? No!
What did He do? He forgave and prayed for them.
Now that love!
Jesus never said the Christian walk was going to be easy. In fact, He said that the world would persecute us because they persecuted Him. John 15:20b- “...If they persecute Me, they will persecute you also...”
We as true believers in Christ need to forgive and move on when people hurt us and say cruel things to us just like Jesus did.
That’s love.