Saturday: On Turning the Other Cheek
WEEK 26
SATURDAY
ON TURNING THE OTHER CHEEK
Matthew 5:43-48
We come to look at the last of the ways in which the preaching of Jesus turned the world upside down.
8. You can conquer by turning the other cheek. This was absolutely revolutionary. On a Roman tomb were these words: “No man ever did more good to his friends and harm to his enemies.” That was the approved standard. Jesus reversed that. He said overcome evil with good and hate by love. Conquer by the turned cheek. Is that weakness, or is it power? If we practiced that, would we be everybody’s doormat or everybody’s temple of refuge?
I picked up a letter that told of a woman who had been changed from a nominal Christian to a real one. She wrote to her daughter:
Daddy left this morning to take some cattle to the sale, and he didn’t come home for dinner. When suppertime came, he still wasn’t home. I knew he had met some men, and they were drinking. My stomach started to get upset, my head started aching, and I began to worry, and at the same time I began to get rebellious and angry. As usual, when Daddy pulls this stunt, I went to my bedroom to get ready to leave for a few hours so I wouldn’t have to face him or see him. I was seething with what I thought was righteous indignation. I heard the truck drive in and heard Daddy come in and lay down on the front-room floor. Then I looked at myself in the mirror, and my heart said, “Wait, listen!” I knelt down and prayed. I then got up and went into the kitchen and fixed Daddy coffee and supper. I got him up, and we ate together, and I sat there and loved him, rather Jesus and I loved him. Soon Daddy raised his head and said, “You aren’t mad! Why?”
And then she added: “Blessed, wonderful Jesus, thou lovest him too, and I pray that soon our marriage will be complete: You, my husband, and I.”
The husband probably responded, but if he did or didn’t, the victory was already there. The wife had already mastered her resentments and bitterness—. The victory in being a Christian.
The positive was in the process of overcoming the negative.
O blessed Jesus, your ways are our ways—the ways written within us. And when we do your will, we do our own deepest will. We thank you. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: Today I shall overcome all evil with good, all hate by love, the world by a cross.