From Chuck Colson’s Breakpoint, a commentary titled Forgiving Our Enemies: Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima—and Calvary.
This is the kind of story I love to read; it gives me great hope. It reminds me of the depths of God’s power and love.
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During his 40 months as a POW, Jacob DeShazer began reading a Bible. After asking Christ to forgive his sins, he looked at the enemy guards and officers and realized,
”if Christ is not in a heart, it is natural to be cruel... [M]y bitter hatred ... changed to loving pity." Remembering Christ's words from the cross— "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do"—he asked God to forgive those who tortured him, as well.Years later, DeShazer’s testimony as recorded in his booklet, “I Was a Prisoner of Japan,” led his captor’s ace pilot, Mitsuo Fuchida, to Christ.
Over a thirty-year span, Captain Fuchida and Sergeant DeShazer traveled together throughout Japan. Together and separately, they saw tens of thousands of Japanese converted.____
A reflection upon the statement, “If Christ is not in a heart, it is natural to be cruel:” I think it’s natural to be cruel when others are cruel to you regardless, but only when one dwells within God’s love and forgiveness in Christ can cruelty from either side be resisted. Meaning, one can resist the mental and emotional effects of outer cruelty and also control impulses to retaliate from within.
I also think it is natural to love those who love us, even without Christ in our heart. Who doesn’t want to be loved? Yet only by dwelling within God’s love and forgiveness in Christ can we keep from making idols of those who love us. Only by dwelling thus can we keep proper boundaries or even properly admonish those who love us, when necessary.
