Symptomatic words: "Fair" and "Unfair", "Resent" and "Resentment"

by A. W. Tozer 

After hearing some Christians talk for a while, one begins to sense the presence of health or disease in their souls.  Certain words keep cropping up that tell us more about the speakers than they dream we know, and certainly more than they want us to know. Words are symptomatic.

    One such word sometimes used among Christians is "fair," or its unpleasant sister "unfair."  People use these words to describe the treatment accorded them by other people, and on the surface they would seem to be altogether innocent, even indispensable words.  Nevertheless, they indicate an inner attitude that has no place among Christians.  The man who refers to one or another act as being "unfair" to him is not a victorious man.  He is inwardly defeated, and in self-defense he is appealing to the referee to note that he has been fouled.  This gives him an alibi when they carry him out on a stretcher and saves his face while his bruises heal.  He can always blame his defeat on the fact that he was treated unfairly by others. [note: this is the popular "victim mentality" we see everywhere today].

    Christians who understand the true meaning of the cross will never whine about being treated unfairly.  Whether or not they are given fair treatment will never enter their heads. They know that they have been called to follow Christ, and certainly Christ did not receive anything remotely approaching fair treatment from mankind.  Right there lies the glory of the cross - that a Man suffered unfairly, was abused and maligned and crucified by people unworthy to breathe the same air with Him.  Yet He did not open His mouth.  Though reviled He did not return the hatred, and when He suffered, He did not threaten anyone.  The thought of His shouting for fair play simply cannot be entertained by the reverent heart.  His whole life was dedicated to restoring that which He had not taken away.  Had He sat down and calculated how much He owed and then carefully paid no more, the whole moral universe would have collapsed.

    The victorious Christian is not concerned with getting his or her fair share of things.  Love is not self-seeking, and the odd thing is that the happy saint who opens his or her hand to be robbed at the will of others will always be found to be richer than those who do the robbing.

    Sometimes, it is true, God allows His people to suffer unjudged wrongs and waits for the day of reckoning to balance the scales.  But usually His judgments are not so long postponed.  And even when granted that Christians must suffer wrongs here below, if they take them in a good spirit and without complaint, they have conquered their enemy and won the fight.

from chapter 30 of This World: Playground or Battleground?

More Symptomatic Words: "Resent," "Resentment"

I have been around religious circles quite awhile now, and I have never heard the word "resent" used by victorious Christians... In the course of scores of conferences and hundreds of conversations, I have many times heard people say, "I resent that," but I repeat - I have never heard the words used by victorious Christians. Resentment simply cannot dwell in a loving heart.  Before resentfulness can enter, love must take its flight and bitterness must enter.  The bitter soul will compile a list of slights at which it takes offense and will watch over itself like a mother bear over her cubs. And the figure is apt, for the resentful heart is always surly and suspicious like a she-bear.

    Few sights are more depressing than that of a professed Christian defending his or her supposed rights and bitterly resisting any attempt to violate them. Such a Christian has never accepted the way of the cross...

    The only cure for this sort of thing is to die to self and rise with Christ into newness of life....Christ left us an example and from it there can be no appeal.  As He was, so are we in this world, and He never felt a trace of resentment against any man or woman.

.... The bitter heart is not likely to recognize its own condition, and if the resentful man reads this editorial at all, he will smile smugly and think I mean someone else.  In the meantime he will grow smaller and smaller trying to get big, and will become more and more obscure trying to become known.

from Chapter 31 of This World: Playground or Battleground?