Simplicity Starts Within
“When you are on the way to court with your adversary, settle your differences quickly. Otherwise, your accuser may hand you over to the judge, who will hand you over to an officer, and you will be thrown into prison.” (Matthew 5:25)
You’ve done wrong? You’ve been offensive? Your actions or words have caused hurt? To do nothing is not only in direct disobedience to Jesus’ teaching, it also complicates your life. It adds heavier mental weights than you are capable of carrying. It is like dropping an anchor and then cranking up your boat’s engine and putting it in gear. The anchor keeps catching and snagging on the bottom, making for a terribly uncomfortable ride across the water. How simple the solution! Just pull in the anchor. (By the way, I’ve never been on a boat with an automatic return anchor. If you dropped it out . . . you needed to pull it in.)
Are you nursing a lingering offense? That is, does someone have a lingering offense against you? Let me give you a simple tip: We cannot be right with God until we are right with others. That is the whole gist of this statement.
Here’s another one. You might say, “Well, it’s true I’ve had a problem with that guy, but, you know, he’s not a Christian. He’s more like an enemy, an opponent.” Well, I’m glad you brought him up. Jesus adds this counsel regarding our opponents:
Make friends quickly with your opponent at law while you are with him on the way, so that your opponent may not hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. (Matthew 5:25 NASB 1995)
In other words, solve the problem before it gets to court—before it really gets serious.
Simplicity starts from within. Is there so much pride in your heart that you are going to get your way, no matter what? That is nothing but anger, pure and simple, that has gotten out of control—which takes us back to the whole issue of murder. Jesus is concerned about estranged feelings that grow into a small sore. Then the sore festers, comes to a head, and fills with pus; then it bursts, with corruption oozing all over the relationship. The simple (not easy, mind you, simple) answer is to work it out between you. Jesus spoke with fire in His bones. We cannot be right with God until we are right with one another.
Taken from Simple Faith by Charles R. Swindoll. Copyright © 1991, 2003 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. Used by permission of HarperCollins Christian Publishing. www.harpercollinschristian.com
