MORE REVOLUTIONARY THAN THE REVOLUTIONARIES

“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45 NIV)

Though sympathizing with the revolutionaries' analysis of what was wrong with society and in fact being mistaken for a revolutionary Himself by the political authorities of His day, nevertheless Jesus did not advocate a new political regime to be established by force through revolutionary action.  He called for the love of our enemies, not their destruction; ... for readiness to suffer instead of using force; for forgiveness instead of hate and revenge.  One might even say that Jesus was more revolutionary than the revolutionaries, or revolutionary in a very different way.  The revolution He had in mind was a radical change of heart on the part of mankind, involving conversion away from selfishness and toward the willing service of God and of people in general. 

-- Clark H. Pinnock (1937-2010) in “Reason Enough” 

#5993

FORGIVING OUR GRIEF-GIVERS -- Part 3 of 3

Based on 1 Samuel 24.

David faced Saul the way he faced Goliath – by facing God more so.  When the soldiers in the cave urged David to kill Saul, look who occupied David’s thoughts:  “The Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my master, the Lord’s anointed, to stretch out my hand against him, seeing he is the anointed of the Lord” (I Samuel 24:6).

When David called out to Saul from the mouth of the cave, “David stooped with his face to the earth, and bowed down” (24:8).  Then he reiterated his conviction:  “I will not stretch out my hand against my lord, for he is the Lord’s anointed” (24:10).

In the second scene, during the nighttime campsite attack, David maintained his belief:  “Who can stretch out his hand against the Lord’s anointed, and be guiltless?” (26:9).

In these two scenes I count six times when David called Saul “the Lord’s anointed.”  Can you think of another term David might have used?  Buzzkill and epoxy brain come to my mind.  But not to David’s.  He saw, not Saul the enemy, but Saul the anointed.  He refused to see his grief-giver as anything less than a child of God.  David didn’t applaud Saul’s behavior; he just acknowledged Saul’s proprietor – God.  David filtered his view of Saul through the grid of heaven.  The king still belonged to God, and that gave David hope.

-- Max Lucado in “Facing Your Giants”

#5393

FORGIVING OUR GRIEF-GIVERS -- Part 2 of 3

 Based on 1 Samuel 24.

Vengeance fixes your attention at life’s ugliest moments.  Score-settling freezes your stare at cruel events in your past.  Is this where you want to look?  Will rehearsing and reliving your hurts make you a better person?  By no means.  It will destroy you.

I’m thinking of an old comedy routine.  Joe complains to Jerry about the irritating habit of a mutual friend.  The guy pokes his finger in Joe’s chest as he talks.  It drives Joe crazy.  So he resolves to get even.  He shows Jerry a small bottle of highly explosive nitroglycerine tied to a string.  He explains, “I’m going to wear this around my neck, letting the bottle hang over the exact spot where I keep getting poked.  Next time he sticks his finger in my chest, he’ll pay for it.”

Not nearly as much as Joe will, right?  Enemy destroyers need two graves.  “It is foolish to harbor a grudge” (Ecclesiastes 7:9 TEV).  An eye for an eye becomes a neck for a neck and a job for a job and a reputation for a reputation.  When does it stop?  It stops when one person imitates David’s God-dominated mind.

-- Max Lucado in “Facing Your Giants”

#5392

RESENTMENT AND BITTERNESS

Do you have a whole in your heart? Perhaps the wound is old. A parent abused you; a teacher slighted you… And you are angry.

Or perhaps the wound is fresh. The friend who owes you money just drove by in a new car. The boss who hired you with promises of promotions has forgotten how to pronounce your name. Your circle of friends escaped on a weekend get-away, and you weren’t invited… And you are hurt.

Part of you is broken, and the other part is bitter. Part of you wants to cry, and part of you wants to fight. The tears you cry are hot because they come from your heart, where there is a fire burning. It’s the fire of anger. It’s blazing. It’s consuming. Its flames leap up under a streaming pot of revenge.

And you are left with a decision. “Do I put the fire out or heat it up? Do I get over it or get even? Do I release it or resent it? Do I let my hurts heal, or do I let hurt turn into hate?... Resentment is the deliberate decision to nurse the offense until it becomes a black, furry, growling grudge…

Unfaithfulness is wrong. Revenge is bad. But the worst part of all is that, without forgiveness, bitterness is all that is left. 

-- Max Lucado in “The Applause of Heaven”

#5215

ANGER AND SIN

“If you become angry, do not let your anger lead you into sin, and do not stay angry all day. Don't give the Devil a chance.”  (Ephesians 4:26-27 GNT)

Anger in itself is not a sin since “God is… angry with the wicked every day.” (Psalm 7:11) Anger is sinful when it flares without reflection; when it is disproportionate to the offense; when it lasts too long and becomes revengeful. 

-- From the New Unger’s Bible Dictionary

#5080

IF I CAN’T FORGIVE

"Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you."  (Colossians 3:13 NIV)

If our past fences us in with resentment and with desires for revenge, we are old before our time because the past holds us captive. If I can’t forgive someone who has hurt me in the past, even if the hurting was mean and intentional, I am letting them control me years later. It is enough that someone hurt me when I was five or fifteen or fifty. Why let them continue to hurt me today? Why should I allow their deeds to control me still, decades later?

-- J. Ellsworth Kalas in “I Love Growing Older, But I'll Never Grow Old”


#4766

THE ESCALATOR OF VENGEANCE

Vengeance is a passion to get even. It is a hot desire to give back as much pain as someone gave you... The problem with revenge is that it never gets what it wants; it never evens the score. Fairness never comes. The chain reaction set off by every act of vengeance always takes its unhindered course. It ties both the injured and the injurer to an escalator of pain. Both are stuck on the escalator as long as parity is demanded, and the escalator never stops, never lets anyone off.

--  Lewis B. Smedes in Forgive and Forget

#3968

A TROJAN HORSE

"Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice." (Ephesians 4:31)

A Trojan Horse sits just outside the gate of your heart.  Its mane is bitterness.  It is a monument to every attack you have endured from your fellow human beings.  It is a gift left by the people who have wronged you.  It is a monument to the pain, the sorrow, and the devastation they have caused you.  It represents the debt they will owe you until the day they are brought to justice.  It is rightfully yours.

But to accept the gift is to invite ruin into your life.  You see, there is more to the horse than meets the eye.  The feeling of justification it brings is the deceptive artistry of a master craftsman.  Though decorated with the promise of vindication, it is only a lure.  The celebration is short-lived.  Once inside the walls of your heart, it releases its agents of destruction. Its plot quietly unfolds from the inside out.  To become a person of character, you must learn to recognize the Trojan Horse of bitterness.  And more important, you must never bring it inside.

-- Andy Stanley in Like a Rock

#3696

ONLY FORGIVENESS FREES

As long as you are tangled in wrong and revenge, blow and counterblow, aggression and defense, you will be constantly drawn into fresh wrong... Only forgiveness frees us from the injustice of others.

-- Theologian Romano Guardini in The Lord


#3113

GIVING UP THE BALANCE SHEET

Forgiveness is a choice.  It's a decision about how we deal with the past.  One choice we can make about wrongs we have suffered in the past is to seek revenge.  "Don't get mad, get even" is a popular saying these days.  The idea behind it is an economic one, that there is a balance owed to me because I have been wronged, that I will feel poor and deprived until the day I have found satisfaction for the wrongs committed against me.  I may resort to a lawsuit or to the cold shoulder or to some other method, but I will make the wrongdoer pay dearly.

To choose forgiveness instead is to give up the balance sheet view of things.  By letting go of what I perceive as wrongs committed against me, I can also let go of bitterness and resentment.  I no longer have to wait for vindication, for evening the score.  At any moment I can choose to take control of how I feel about the past.

-- Kenneth L. Gibble in Alive Now, July/August 1995, published by The Upper Room, Nashville, TN.   Used with permission.


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