December 7 Daily Devotional

O give us hearts to love like Thee,
Like Thee, O Lord, to grieve
Far more for others’ sins, than all
The wrongs that we receive
(Edward Denny)

Look at Him there upon the cross, who never sinned, who never did any harm to anyone, who came and preached the truth, who came to seek and save that which was lost. There He is, nailed and suffering agonies on that cross, and yet what does He say as He looks upon the people who are responsible for it? ‘Father, forgive them.’ Why? ‘For they know not what they do.’... Now you and I are to become like that. Look at Stephen the martyr attaining to that. As they are stoning him, what does he say? ... ‘Lay not this sin to their charge.’ ‘They do not know what they are doing, Lord’, says Stephen; “They are mad ... they do not understand me as Thy servant; they do not understand my Lord and Master....’ He has pity upon them and is merciful with respect to them. And that, I say, is to be the condition of every one who is truly Christian. We are to feel a sense of sorrow for all who are helpless slaves of sin. That is to be our attitude towards people.

I wonder whether we have recognized this as the Christian position even when people were using us despitefully and maligning us.... They are to be pitied. Look at the things about which they get angry, showing that their whole central spirit is wrong; so unlike Christ, so unlike God who has forgiven them everything. We should feel a great sorrow for them, we should be praying to God for them and asking Him to have mercy upon them ... all this follows of necessity if we have truly experienced what it means to be forgiven. If I know that I am a debtor to mercy alone, if I know that I am a Christian solely because of that free grace of God, there should be no pride left in me ... no insisting upon my rights. Rather, as I look out upon others, if there is anything in them that is unworthy ... I should have this great sorrow for them in my heart.

Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, i, pp. 103–4