Day Fifty-seven

“Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man
who takes refuge in him.” (Ps. 34:8)

Scripture Reading: Luke 6:27–36; Psalm 34:1–8

On day fifty-five, we highlighted Proverbs 3:27: “Do not withhold good from those who deserve it, when it is in your power to act.” I’ve purposely waited a few days for those words to sink in before proposing a giant step farther in God’s command not to “withhold good”; in fact, it’s such a giant step that some of us may be doing the splits. What about doing good to those who don’t deserve it?

In Luke 6:27–28 Christ, the glorious Revolutionary, flabbergasted His listeners when He challenged them to take the giant step: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” He went on to say in Luke 6:33: “If you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ do that.” Let’s admit it. This command is so Christlike that to obey stretches us completely beyond our natural reach. Following Christ means stepping beyond the norm—into actions only Jesus would take.

No one particularly enjoys doing good to those who treat them badly. So, why should we? I believe three chief reasons exist:

The promise of great reward. God assures us His reward is far beyond the uncomfortable risks we’ll be forced to take. Let’s be careful not to assume His rewards are always logical (at least to us). We might expect the reward to be winning the favor of the person who hates us. We might even think the reward could come in our privilege to lead the person to faith in Christ. The truth of the matter is they may hate you twice as much after you extend kindness to them. God promises a “great” reward far beyond the logical. You can count on it—but you can’t count on what it will be.

The mark of sonship. Once again read Luke 6:35. When we do good to those who hate us, we demonstrate our kinship to our Father, the Most High God because He is “kind to the ungrateful and wicked.” We are never more like Christ than when we are willing to stretch beyond our natural likes and dislikes to extend good, love, and mercy to those who despise us.

The taste of God. Psalm 34:8 says, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” Beloved, the Lord is calling us to be appetizers so others will want to taste God! Matthew 10:22 tells us that sometimes people hate us because they hate Christ. When we extend goodness to those who hate us, we give them a taste of the goodness of One far greater. Many will never “taste” God until their appetites have been whetted by the goodness of one of His more palatable ambassadors.

Perhaps you’ve never thought of yourself as an appetizer before. Let’s look at life a little differently today. Our job is to offer people a taste so they will want the main course. Just picture yourself on a cracker—and let Him serve you up with a smile.