Daily Hope with Rick Warren

God Says Respond to Unfairness with Love - Daily Hope with Rick Warren - September 16, 2020

My Crosswalk Follow devo

rick warrens daily hope new banner may 2022

God Says Respond to Unfairness with Love
By Rick Warren

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:43-44 NIV).

Unfairness is part of the human condition. You can’t live on this earth for long without feeling like someone has treated you unfairly. Maybe it’s a parent who put you through a miserable childhood. Maybe it’s an employer who treats you more harshly than they treat your coworkers. Maybe you feel like you were handled unfairly by the legal process.

You can choose to respond to the people who hurt you by hurting them. That’s the easiest choice to make, no doubt about it.

But God gives us another option in his Word: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:43-44 NIV).

When people hurt you, they expect you to retaliate. They expect you to seek revenge. But God wants you to do the exact opposite. He wants you to respond in love.

If you respond to mistreatment with love, you’ll keep the other person from controlling you. You can’t control when another person treats you unfairly. You can control whether you get bitter in the process. You can control your response to injustice.

Just because you respond to an offender lovingly doesn’t mean you continue to allow injustice. On the contrary, we must lovingly seek justice. We must work for justice in the world without retaliating. The Bible commands us to “be fair-minded and just. Do what is right!” (Jeremiah 22:3 NLT).

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a great example of this. He fought against injustice without violence. He overcame evil through the power of love. He followed the example of Jesus, who chose to forgive his persecutors even as they were killing him.

That’s our calling as followers of Jesus. Unfairness and injustice may be part of the human condition, but we must not feed into it. Instead, God calls us to respond in love.

PLAY today’s audio teaching from Pastor Rick

For more Daily Hope with Rick Warren, please visit pastorrick.com!


Created to Dream Rick Warren Daily Hope offer croppedYour Gift Brings Hope to the World

God has dreams for your life!

In Pastor Rick’s book "Created to Dream: The 6 Phases God Uses to Grow Your Faith," you’ll learn how to discover God’s custom-made dream for your life—a dream that is bigger and better than anything you could ever dream up on your own! And you’ll find practical help for navigating challenges, delays, and detours that stand in your way.

We’d love to send you a copy as our way of saying thank you for your generous gift below to help take the hope of Jesus to more people through Daily Hope.

Request yours when you give today—and thank you for your partnership!

*All gifts will be doubled up to the full amount of the grant. Thank you for your generous support! 
*The USA IRS code permits you to deduct the amount of your financial gift to Daily Hope that exceeds the fair market value of materials you received from Daily Hope.

This devotional © 2018 by Rick Warren. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

You can listen to Rick Warren on OnePlace.com.

My Crosswalk Follow devo

SHARE