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  2^nd November 2024

SaturdayReflection

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'William Higgins shares'

 'I'm a pastor and a teacher.'

"How to overcome evil with
   good. Romans 12:19-21"

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I am quite certain that each one of us have been wronged, wounded and hurt by others.

According to the world there's really only one way to respond - we should strike back; we should harm our enemies in return.

Now God put a limit on this when Moses taught in the Old Testament 'an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.'
That is, the payback has to be in proportion to the injury suffered.

But still there is in our world an endless cycle of people harming others and then those harmed returning the same through personal vengeance, the justice system and warfare. An endless cycle.

But Jesus shows us another way; the way of love.

This is how it works. Someone harms you.
This can happen on a small scale, for instance, someone insults you.
Or it can be something truly terrible, for instance, someone kills a loved one of yours.

How will we respond?
It's natural to be angry and to want justice; in fact, we usually want more than "an eye for and eye;" we want to give back much more harm than we got.
Evil is very powerful.

The question is 'What will we do with our anger?'
Usually, we give in to our anger to one degree or another; our desire for justice.
And when we do this we return harm for harm.

The result is that you are now harming another person, just as your enemy harmed you.
You are doing the same thing.

You have been overcome.
You are now caught up in the cycle of evil for evil; harm for harm - just responding to others based on how they have treated you.

But harm for harm never truly satisfies, even, for instance, if someone kills your family member and the criminal is executed.
It doesn't restore what was taken away from us.
It doesn't give us peace. You may even the balances and that might feel good on a certain level, but you will never overcome the evil done to you with more harm.

It's normal to have anger when someone harms you. This is due to our sense that an injustice has happened.
This is how God made us.
We are not to deny this or try to suppress it.
Anger is not wrong.
It's what you do with your anger that's the issue.

The key to overcoming evil and breaking out of the cycle of evil for evil - giving the agenda of justice or payback over to God.

He can fight for us and judge our enemies according to his will.
This is what God says he will do, "I will repay."
Not, "you will repay," but "I will repay, says the Lord."

It is our trust in God that sets us free.
We know that God can handle it.
It might not happen right away; it might not happen until the final day, but all wrongs will be righted by God.
We can trust God to take care of us.

Once we've placed the agenda of payback into God's hands this frees us up to love our enemies and do good to them.
We can focus on mercy, since we know that God will take care of issues of justice.

Now, we hope that such acts of love will lead our enemy to repent, and we should pray for this.
But if not, we know that God is more than able to deal with them.

Jesus models for us how to overcome evil with good on the cross.

   ><(((°>

This is an edited version.
The full article and Bible references are avaiable on request

'Hi, I'm William Higgins. '
I'm a pastor and a teacher.
My life goal is pretty simple - to understand the way of Jesus, to put this into practice in my life, and to teach and encourage others to do the same.

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