When Good People Hurt Others

There is an understanding among Christians that we don’t really like to admit out loud. We tell ourselves that we shouldn’t speak about it because it could harm the church. We pretend it doesn’t exist because we don’t want to turn people away from the church. We hide behind our good works and smile as if nothing was wrong.

Christians can be some of the most hurtful people.

I didn’t say hurting people, but that is also true. The church building is often full of people that are struggling just to make it through another week.

And perhaps that contributes to the hurting toward others. Lashing out at others because of our own hurts.

Christians more than most understand just how vile, how dirty, how undeserving we truly are. Scripture even tells us that our very best is like a soiled garment (Isaiah 64:6).

Don’t get me wrong. Christians are good people; not because of something we have done. Christians are good only through the redemptive grace of Jesus Christ. It is through His sacrifice that we have been made clean. It is because of His victory over sin that we have become justified through Him.

And for all of the forgiveness that God has bestowed on us, we can still be some of the most unforgiving people. The world calls us judgmental. And we are. However, when we judge based on God’s expectations, we all fall short.

But Christians often judge based on their own expectations, their own traditions, their own sense of weighted sins. That is because our human nature continues to battle with our spiritual nature every day. It is telling us that we must make something of ourselves. It wants us to believe that through our own ability we can be better.

We make a judgment about what we think is good and what is bad. We hand down the decision that we are better than others. And in doing so we hurt those we love the most: our family, our friends, our children, and fellow Christians.

Half the harm that is done in this world

Is due to people who want to feel important

They don’t mean to do harm ­

But the harm does not interest them.

Or they do not see it, or they justify it

Because they are absorbed in the endless struggle

To think well of themselves.

T. S. Eliot

This is of course a generalization. Not all Christians hurt people in order to feel better about themselves. Christians aren't necessarily worse offenders than non-Christians when it comes to hurting others. But we must admit that it happens and that sometimes we are the cause of the hurt.

We will stop hurting others when we realize who we are in God. He created us to be something beautiful. Our sin marred that beautiful creation, but Jesus’ death and resurrection provided the means to remake us into the spectacular thing that God originally intended. We must understand that nothing we do can make us better. We will stop hurting others when we stop trying to make ourselves look good at their expense.

“For by the grace given to me, I tell everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he should think. Instead, think sensibly, as God has distributed a measure of faith to each one.” Romans 12:3 HCSB