These things are impossible apart from God, and so when they are present in our lives, the unbelieving world sees something unfamiliar to them, something divine, and something they know they need.
The apostle Paul exhorts us to bear “with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive” (Col. We are to pray for them and meet their needs and endure their scorn. Jesus said we are to love people who hate us and wrong us. Jesus said if we only love those who love us, we are in accord with the way the world operates, and there is no benefit for us (Luke 6:32). When a Christian loves and forgives liberally, especially at some cost to their property or reputation or health, the unbeliever sees something radically different than what he is familiar with in the world. 37 All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 36 But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. The world, therefore, does not understand Christian love and forgiveness that is not self-serving. 35 Then Jesus declared, I am the bread of life. Nobody is surprised when they encounter this self-orientation in others as it is the natural condition of all people. To one degree or another, the unbeliever lives by the flesh and seeks to gratify himself while denying God the glory He is due. We are living testimonies of the supernatural power of God to break the power of selfishness and sin and establish a new life in the Spirit (Rom. On the other hand, if we are genuinely overwhelmed with the grace and forgiveness that God has shown to us in Christ, and if the love of God is overflowing out of our hearts and manifesting itself in our relationships, then we are witnesses to something that is foreign to the world and its legalistic approach to God.
When we hold grudges against fellow Christians, cling to pride, and refuse to forgive each other, we may affirm the skeptic’s suspicion that Christianity is a facade of moralism with no real supernatural power to change people’s hearts. If we are self-serving, self-promoting, unforgiving, and arrogant in our relationships, that will drown out what we have to say. As Christians, how we treat other people speaks louder to the world regarding the authenticity and validity of our beliefs than the doctrines we teach, the creeds we confess, or even the moral and good lives we try to live.
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