"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.'" Romans 12:19-20
Uh oh, I think we might have a problem. From yesterday, I was good with just letting the Lord have at our enemies. However, I believe that Paul might be going a bit too far with this instruction. Surely, he doesn't know our situation.....he just doesn't realize the enemy that I am dealing with in my life. Yet, this is God's Word; meaning- we don't have the luxury of picking and choosing only select passages that we are comfortable with. Disclaimer: I am not suggesting that we try to move toward harmful situations nor "poisonous" people. What I am saying is that we have to take this passage seriously and seek to apply it to our "enemy" situations. Of course, it is real easy to sit down and type some words about extending goodness to our enemies....it is quite another thing to actually live it out. Let's take one or two steps in this direction this week. You game?
By the way, check back tomorrow.....I heard something very profound today that I will share tomorrow.
Actually Matthew was quoting Proverbs chapter 25 verses 21 and 22. God sometimes puts difficult people in our path for a reason. Allowing God to fight our battles and returning love when we get hate thrown our way is following the greatest example shown by God's only son Jesus. Your very old friend George B.
ReplyDeleteMax Lucado shared an illustration in one of his books that when you are angry with someone, you have to put them in the jail cell of your anger. They may or may not know they are in jail, but you as the jailer have to use a lot of energy to keep them there. Better to let them and the situation go.
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