When We Are Abused Matthew 5:43-48

Abuse is rampant in our world. It seems new stories are constantly emerging of one person inflicting harm upon others. Sadly, few victims know where to seek respite and restoration. You likely know someone who needs to hear that God is a hiding place for the mistreated. Perhaps that someone is you.

The heavenly Father is faithful to comfort His children and heal their wounds. When His strength undergirds us, we can respond rightly to abuse and the abuser.

• Ask, “Lord, what would You have me do?” There’s no standard answer, since so many kinds and degrees of abuse exist. God knows when the right response is to leave home, seek counseling, stay and pray for the abuser, or follow some other course of action. The Lord will never tell you to do anything that violates His Word.
• Pray for the abuser. Specifically, ask the Lord to show you what motivates the person to injure others. I wish I had prayed this way earlier for my own stepfather, who physically abused my mother and also hit me. My healing process accelerated when I finally learned that he had endured cruel treatment from his father. A harsh past did not excuse his actions, but I was able to feel compassion for him, thanks to God’s love at work in me.

God’s tender grace heals the wounds of abuse. Only He can replace resentment with compassion, erase the pain from bitter memories, and give the abused a renewed sense of their worth as His treasured children. From our hiding place in His love, we can thrive even in a harsh environment.

Following God

And now what do you gain by going to Egypt to drink the waters of the Nile?

Jeremiah 2:18

By different miracles, by various mercies, by strange deliverances Jehovah had proved Himself to be worthy of Israel’s trust. Yet they broke down the hedges with which God had enclosed them as a sacred garden; they forsook their own true and living God and followed after false gods. Constantly the Lord reproved them for this infatuation, and our text displays God’s remonstrating with them, “And now what do you gain by going to Egypt to drink the waters of the Nile?” “Why are you wandering and leaving your own cool stream? Why do you forsake Jerusalem and turn aside to the wasteland? Why are you so strangely set on mischief that you cannot be content with what is good and healthy, but instead chase after what is evil and deceitful?” Is there not here a word of exposition and warning to the Christian?

O true believer, called by grace and washed in the precious blood of Jesus, you have tasted a better drink than the muddy river of this world’s pleasure. You have fellowship with Christ; you have obtained the joy of seeing Jesus and resting in His loving embrace. Do the trifles, the songs, the honors, the merriment of this earth content you after that? Have you eaten the bread of angels, and can you live on scraps?

Good Rutherford once said, “I have tasted of Christ’s own manna, and it has put my mouth out of taste for the brown bread of this world’s joys.” I think it should be so with you. If you are wandering after the waters of Egypt, O return quickly to the one living fountain: The waters of the Nile may be sweet to the Egyptians, but they will prove only bitterness to you. What have you to do with them? Jesus asks you this question this evening—what will you answer Him?