How to Love a Liar (2): Remembering Our Purpose with People

Mumford & Son’s “After the Son”

We know Jesus was able to love people that lied about him.  Jesus proved this by keeping company with Judas for over three years.  Jesus revealed this love when He asked the Father to forgive the ones that had him crucified.  Lies and deception were a major tool they used to have Jesus killed. Christians are encouraged to follow Jesus’s great example of love (1 Cor. 11:1; Eph. 5:1-2).  How can we get our hearts and minds in that place where we can love a liar even though we may be hurt, disappointed, and/or betrayed again?

One of the main things we must remember that will help us learn to radically love a liar is God wants us to bless others (1 Peter 3:8-9).  Yes, we crave love to be returned.  Sure, we crave and need trust.  However, love is not always reciprocated the way we like.  It may never by returned by someone we know.  When this happens, we are not blessed when we react to the harm.  Peter assures us that we are still blessed in a relationship when we do not return evil for evil, but return blessing instead.  Though lies and deceit hurt, we can still bless the liar.

There are many ways we can bless the liar in our life.  We can do this by not gossiping about him.  We bless the liar by praying for his well-being, and ask that he learn a better way to get things accomplished than by lying.  We can also stop demanding that he be something he is not at the current time.  Yes, we want the lies, deceit, betrayal, and hurt to cease. But, we cannot force him to stop.

Does loving the liar mean we have to act like we are not hurt?  While Jesus did not reveal that Judas was the guilty party to his disciples for a long time, He did indicate to Judas that He knew.  Note the words Jesus used: “Friend, do what you came for (Matt. 26:50); “Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss? (Luke 22:48)”; Finally, Jesus referred to Judas as his betrayer to his three friends (Mark 14:42).  Loving someone that hurts us does not mean we avoid acknowledging it, or directly tell the offender of the hurt (Matt. 18:15-17).

Remember that our primary obligation with a liar is to love them as Jesus loved us.  It can be difficult, but we are not alone as we do it.  Seeking vengeance, harboring hate or ill will, or not proactively seeking the good of his soul robs him of the life of Jesus, and it will hurt us even more.  Once we have it settled in our minds and hearts that our primary obligation in any relationship is to bless, we can move forward in doing other things to love the liar.  Check out www.sftawareness.org for wonderful tools that help assertiveness when you have been hurt.  More to come.