God told us to treat our enemies with the love and respect they do not show us.
This means they remain our enemies. Nowhere in the Bible does God say if you love your enemies they will stop acting disrespectfully toward you.
Our goal as believers is to keep ourselves living in the light no matter what others are doing. If we exact revenge or try to school a raging narcissist we are playing their game with them.
Proverbs 26:4-5
"4 Do not answer a fool according to his foolishness,
Or you will also be like him.
5 Answer a fool as his foolishness deserves,
So that he will not be wise in his own eyes."
Once we have discovered the nature of a rebellious person we can take the appropriate steps to remove ourselves. God never commanded anywhere to keep rebellious people in our lives unless we are married to them, that is another subject for another time.
It is a modern foolish idea that if we treat the scoffer and the narcissist with love that they will like us and then like Jesus. We know this is not true because Jesus Christ and the apostles all lived out the Christ-like life and they never followed anyone around hoping being good enough would influence the evil man.
Kindness to a wicked man is salt in the wound of their sinfulness. They burn with anger when someone is kind to them and even worse if we love them so much we are wiling to speak the truth that might save them from hell.
It is wise to speak the truth once to the narcissist as directed by the Holy Spirit and remove ourselves when they rage in anger and hatred. Hanging around them for more abuse is unbiblical and does nothing but further empower them as they see us cowering under their heavy hand.
Modern psychology sees narcissists as wounded people but they are not wounded, they are angry and refuse to turn to Christ. We all have an excuse humanistically speaking to be bitter and self-exalted in our own minds. There is no one on the earth who has not been harmed by others in some way and there is no one on earth who has not harmed someone. This is never an excuse to become hateful toward someone because someone else was unkind to us.
Why would some people choose Christ to be cleansed and others hang onto their bitterness and anger using the hurts in their life as an excuse to harm others?
We all have a choice, we can treat others better than others treated us or we can treat others the horrid way they treated us, a sort of vengeful balancing of the scale humanistically speaking.
Making ourselves like the wicked person does nothing except to ruin ourselves. It doesn't change the wicked person and it serves only to change us into wickedness ourselves.
The only way to avoid becoming like the narcissist is to demonstrate every day no matter what is done to us, the Christ-like character God wants us to live out. We cannot say it's not possible, oh, yes it is not possible in our own effort, but it is possible through Jesus Christ Who lives in us.
Since all of mankind, meaning every single person, is born wicked and able of great sinfulness. It is only Jesus Christ Who can change a person from a sinner into a saint. It is Christ alone who changes us and when we falter He redirects us through discipline.
Hebrews 12:5-7 "…5 And you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons: “My son, do not take lightly the discipline of the Lord, and do not lose heart when He rebukes you. 6 For the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and He chastises every son He receives.” 7 Endure suffering as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father"
We trusted Christ to take our sins on Himself, let's also trust Him to take care of things as we obey His commandments. We must focus on our obedience and His direction not on the hurt others might attempt to cause us.
I find that the more I focus on Christ the less I feel any sense of hurt or attack. I see the attacks but they bounce off like water from a duck's back, having little or no impact on my emotional or Spiritual well-being.
Hallelujah, Christ is our victory, we don't have to manipulate or cause anything to happen, He's got this life and knows all of it far better than we ever could. Also, don't forget that we will use what we have learned in this boot-camp for ruling with Christ in the Millennium. How exciting is that?!!!!!
