If we are honest, most of us would agree, these are hard words—

“Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good”. (Rom 12:17-21)

But revenge, feels so sweet….
But, I’ve laid awake at night thinking of how I could get them back….
But, I’ve played the conversation in my head of just what I would say to get them back for hurting me or those I love…

Everything Paul writes seems to go against our emotions and our flesh, our human nature, in this passage.

But if we want to not be overcome by evil, we better apply these words to our lives. We have to take our every flesh-filled thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

Paul told us in his letter to the Corinthians—
“The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Cor 10:5).

Fight
Demolish
Take Captive

Those are war words because we are not skipping through daisies. We are in a battle. A spiritual battle.

Christian—the weapons we fight with are NOT the weapons of the world.

No! We can actually demolish strongholds of sin in our lives, and generational sin in our families lives, if we would but choose to trust God more than we trust ourselves and do what He says and not do what He says not to do.

Yes, we’ve been knocked down, insulted, mistreated and maligned but we have the power to choose not to repay evil for evil. God-in-us can bring about a better way and break chains and set us free.

When we look to Him, to His truth and to His love for us, the opinions and the mistreatment by others fades to matter not

And, dear soldier of the Cross, friend who wears the Name of Christ, this is exactly how others see Christ in us and God’s Kingdom advances.

May we heed the wise words of Roman’s 12 and watch our God move!

readRomans12

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