Do not say, “I’ll pay you back for this wrong!” Wait for the Lord, and He will deliver you. ~Proverbs 20:22
If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; If he’s thirsty, give him water to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you. ~Proverbs 25:21-22
O Lord, the God who avenges, O God who avenges, shine forth. Rise up, O judge of the earth. Pay back to the proud what they deserve. How long will the wicked, O Lord, how long will the wicked be jubilant? ~Psalm 94:1-3
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. ~Matthew 5:10-12
You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. ~Matthew 5:43-48
Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good. ~Romans 12:17-20
I know that we’ve talked about the issues of vengeance before, but I thought this topic would be okay to revisit since we also just revisited the topic of anger this past Saturday as well. These topics must be reviewed again and again, since we are so prone to fall in these areas.
I find it very interesting that things that Jesus said were not really new. He was echoing and reviewing his own inspired words that were already in the Old Testament. And yet the Pharisees hated him! They must have been too focused on the Law, and ignored, or missed, the importance of a lot of this wisdom literature. There is evil in the world. There are people who really do want to hurt us. Our challenge is trying to be able to figure out who is truly evil and who is merely suffering under a misunderstanding, either on our part or theirs, or both.
Sometimes we may think we know, but we can be wrong. That is why there are those times when our wisest move is to take it to the Lord in prayer, as the Psalmist did, and let Him deal with it appropriately and continue to trust that He will. It’s hard to wait. It’s hard not to act. It’s hard to be kind or continue to be kind to someone whom we perceive means us harm. We could be right, but by erring on the side of kindness, and letting God handle it, we leave a door open for reconciliation eventually.
The big question for us to wrestle with is, do we really trust God enough to act? Admittedly, sometimes that is very hard to do. I do believe it is honest to acknowledge the struggle. However, if we have followed Jesus’ instructions in Matthew 18 and have done all we can on our side to deal with the hurt caused, and the attempt at reconciliation, the best path to peace is to hand it over to God and act in love anyway.
This is where I will put in some thoughts from one of my favorite modern theologians. He’s so modern he wrote this on Facebook yesterday! J.P. Dorsey is the president of the Assemblies of God college that our son Caleb is attending. J.P. Dorsey wrote:
Basic Christianity.
*Love your enemies; yes, the ones who sin against us. Jesus did this. We should too.
*Don't be a jerk; even if we think it's justified because they are "Oh so wrong." Jesus didn't do this. We shouldn't either.
*Don't discard people; especially when everyone else thinks we should. Jesus didn't. Neither should we.
*The poor and marginalized matter; and no, it doesn't matter how they got there. Jesus thought this and acted on it. We should too.
These are fundamental. These ideas define our story. There is no Gospel to believe without them. They are not negotiable.
We may never know what seeds we are sowing. We may never learn on this side of heaven, who is witnessing our acts of grace. Even the demons and angels of the unseen world are witnessing how we deal with unforeseen or uncomfortable circumstances. One side may be learning our points of temptation for future use, but all may be amazed at our complete hope and trust in God to act on our behalf when the time is right.
If we are to err, let it be on the side of grace, trusting God for the eternal outcome. In Luke 18, Jesus tells a story about a persistent widow, who kept appearing, as was her right, before an unjust judge, for justice against her adversaries. Luke begins by explaining that Jesus told this story to His disciples “to show them that they should always pray and not give up.” (Luke 18:1) In conclusion, Jesus says: “Will not God bring about justice for His chosen ones, who cry out to Him day and night? Will He keep putting them off? I tell you, He will see that they get justice, and quickly.” (Luke 18:7-8A)
In the meantime, we keep praying, continue to act in love and trust that God will take care of us, His children, because He has promised to do so. In our flesh, we may want to pay back, to hurt in kind, but the advice here, from Solomon, from Paul, from Jesus is, “Don’t.” These are voices of wisdom we do well to heed.
Prayer: Father, there is a lot in the world to be angry about right now! It’s easy to believe the people we disagree with politically are doing it wrong! Everything going wrong is their fault! I hate abortion and racism and riots and violence! I’m not supporting any of that. What do they perceive in me that could be my fault? I don’t know. You do. Please Lord, how long before you fix this? I know You will, and I can rest in peace because I trust you to take care of things in Your good time. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Song: Be Still My Soul
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