A CALL TO ACTION (PART 6)

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Don’t repay evil for evil. Don’t retaliate with insults when people insult you. Instead, pay them back with a blessing. That is what God has called you to do, and He will grant you His blessing.

Turn away from evil and do good.

1 Peter 3:9, 11a NLT

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Pay close attention how people in the news handle someone doing them wrong and you’ll find a short supply of mercy and forgiveness out there. Instead, you see more of an “eye for an eye” approach, attempts of retribution that sometimes can be equal in value to the offense committed against them and, at other times, disproportional. We see this play out in government, particularly in politics, but we also see it in society in general.

Indeed, inclinations for carrying out revenge are alive and well.

This is why today’s call to action, the sixth of this series is of critical importance as the Lord speaks right into the center of any urge for retaliation or vengeance. Here’s what we find in verse 9 of 1 Peter, chapter 3:

Don’t repay evil for evil. Don’t retaliate with insults when people insult you. Instead, pay them back with a blessing. That is what God has called you to do, and He will grant you His blessing.

Think about the last time someone treated you wrong. I’m pretty sure your first impulse wasn’t to “pay them back with a blessing” but that’s just what the Lord commands us to do. It is His call to action, no matter how off kilter it might be when compared to the world’s ways.

God is ordering all Christians to not “repay evil for evil”. In the twelfth chapter of Romans, we find Him building on this when we read:

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. v.21

That last part, the overcoming evil with good part, that’s where you insert the blessing.

What might that blessing look like?

We can go back to the Old Testament and God’s installation of His law to find one of them. Here’s what He said in the nineteenth chapter of Leviticus, verse 18:

“Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.” Leviticus 19:18 NLT

You may recognize this demand to “love your neighbor as yourself” as the second greatest commandment Jesus offered when asked, a commandment only trumped by the order to love God with all our heart and mind and soul and strength (Matthew 22:37-39).  

Trust me when I say that the last thing a person who mistreats you will expect is for you to love them in return. It’s radical and unconventional, set apart from what someone in the world would do...and that’s the point. As Christians, we are called to be holy, or set apart, from the world and one of the ways we can to do this is to love and forgive people, even when other would say it’s unwarranted.

Is it easy?

No one would say it is but just like Jesus, anyone who follows Him didn’t sign up for easy. What we did sign up for was to follow His lead in everything we do, to be Christ-like in the way we live to include interacting with others. When Jesus was on the cross, falsely accused and convicted, dying a criminal’s death as the innocent Son of God, He didn’t wish wrong on those who put Him there. Rather, He asked for God to rain down His forgiveness on them for they didn’t know what they were doing. Living outside of the Lord, sin had them enslaved and they were submitting to the will of Satan.

And so rather than condemn, Jesus loved them. He didn’t seek revenge or bear a grudge. In fact, if any of those who aggrieved Him decided to believe in Him as Savior, He would save them without reservation or question. Despite the way they had treated Him, He would pay them back with a blessing and ultimately overcome evil with His goodness.

Friends, the call to action for today is to refrain from counterattacking people when they attack you, instead giving them a blessing in return and overcoming evil with the goodness of the Lord who leads us to not be assimilated with the world we live in.

Dare to be different and love those who don’t show love to you. You’ll never be closer to living as Jesus did when you do.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.