One usually doesn’t think of Leviticus as a place to look for how to deal with the people in our lives. But chapter 19 does just that.
The main thing it teaches is to respect the people around you.
God talked about respecting the blind and the deaf. (14)
He talked about respecting the elderly. (32)
He talked about respecting those who are different from you. (33)
But the first people he started talking about respecting was our parents.
That only makes sense; you spend most of your time with them. If you can’t learn to respect them, it makes it hard to learn to respect others.
I was talking with a guy recently who was saying he had problems with his parents. I don’t know any details, but he essentially said, “I’ve tried to make our relationship work, but it’s just not happening.”
Undoubtedly there’s some hurt on his side, and I would guess there’s hurt on the parents’ side as well.
The problem with relationships is that it is a two-way street. We can do our best to make a relationship work, but unless the other party does so as well, things won’t get better.
But while we can’t control people’s attitude toward us, we can control our attitude towards them.
God said in verses 17-18,
Do not hate your brother in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in his guilt.
Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself.
I am the LORD. (Leviticus 19:17-18)
Here God tells us the attitude we should have when dealing with difficult relationships and people who have hurt us.
First, do not allow hatred to seep into your heart.
Why? It is completely opposite to the life God wants for us.
John wrote,
“If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar.
For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.
And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother. ” (1 John 4:20-21).
God desires to fill our lives with his love, and that his love would pour out through us to the people around us. But that cannot happen if we hold hatred in our hearts.
Second, confront the problem, don’t avoid it. God said, “Rebuke your neighbor frankly.”
Jesus said much the same thing in Matthew 18.
If your brother sins against you, you are to go to them and tell them their fault. If they don’t listen, bring a witness. If that doesn’t work, bring it before the church.
If they still refuse to listen, he says to put distance between you and them. Why? Because you hate them? No, to keep yourself from getting hurt more.
If it’s not possible to keep your distance physically for whatever reason, put an emotional distance between you and them.
I’m not saying that we should be cold with them. But I do mean putting a protective shell around your emotions when dealing with them.
Know that they are hurtful people, and be prepared for any shots that they may take at you. Don’t fool yourself into believing they’ve changed until they prove themselves.
But whether they change or not, God says, don’t hold a grudge against them. Don’t hold bitterness in your heart against them. And don’t seek revenge.
In other words, forgive them.
Again, forgiveness doesn’t mean you have to put yourself in a place where they can hurt you. It doesn’t mean believing they’ve changed when they haven’t.
But it does mean letting go of bitterness. It means letting go of the idea that they owe you something. And let go of the idea of trying to pay them back for the hurt they’ve caused you.
God finishes by saying that we should love our neighbor as ourselves. In other words, as Jesus said, treat others as you would have them treat you.
Don’t expect them to reciprocate, because many times they won’t. But treat them with the love and kindness that you yourself want.
They may change, they may not. You can’t control that. What you can control is your actions.
The question is not, “Will they change?”
The question is, “Will you?”
Moment to Moment (Bible blog) 