You shall not Hate your brother in yours Heart: you shall in any wise Rebuke your Neighbour, and not suffer Sin upon him.
You shall not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the Children of your people, but you shall Love your Neighbour as yourself: I am the LORD. - Lev 19:17,18
So, we see that the command to Love your neighbor was preceded by the command to Rebuke your neighbor rather than to suffer harm.
God is all about ToughLove.
God has instituted boundaries for man through Spiritual Laws that when broken have negative consequences.
He states those Laws so that we do not have to run into them before we are aware of them.
I was thinking about a friend of mine who raises cows. He put up an electric fence to keep the cows in the pasture.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to explain electricity and the pain that is incurred by an electric shock.
So, the cows touch the fence and they get shocked and learn not to touch it.
Now why did my friend put up an electric fence that would shock his cows? That seems like a cruel thing to do!
He had no choice but to set bounds for his cows. Otherwise:
- They would go into the road, get hit by a car, killed and he would be sued
- They would go into a neighbor's field, trample his crops or eat his grass with an ensuing fight between the neighbors
- They would get themselves entangle, drowned or fallen into pits
The point here is that my friend cares for his cows and so sets bounds for them that at some level appear cruel but are in reality an aspect of his care for them.
So it is with God. Sin is that which causes pain, damage, loss, death. God has set bounds on behavior such that Sin is avoided with its consequences.
This is ToughLove.
God expects us to administer ToughLove. The key part of ToughLove is Love. Otherwise, you are just being 'tough'.
So, we need grow up and mature in Love so that we are strong enough to administer Mercy when applicable and ToughLove when applicable.
In so doing we will emulate our Father which is in Heaven.
20211029 update
The root of all human ills is the SinNature we are all born with. The only hope of keeping a child from succombing to the Sin Nature is tough love which is in very short supply.
ToughLove tells a child from the beginning that God loves them.
ToughLove makes no excuses for the child when they first manifest the SinNature.
ToughLove tells a child that there is an enemy of their Soul who wants to destroy them.
ToughLove controls what the child is exposed to.
ToughLove tells the child of age that there are some consequences of their decisions and actions that only God can help them with.
ToughLove teaches Truth and uncovers deception.
ToughLove is more interested in the child's Character than their accomplishments.
And if ToughLove fails, ToughLove let's the child descend into the pig sty so that they come to themselves as did the prodigal son.
But ToughLove is God's Love and most people have only Human love which fails on so many levels.