Sunday Devotional Week 5

Focus 40 – Extreme Love

March 17, 2013

Romans 12:14-19; 21

Bless those who persecute you. Don’t curse them; pray that God will bless them. Be happy with those who are happy, and weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with each other. Don’t be too proud to enjoy the company of ordinary people. And don’t think you know it all!  Never pay back evil with more evil. Do things in such a way that everyone can see you are honorable.  Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone.  Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God. Don’t let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good.

Love extends to all the people we come into contact with.  Some will be against us.  Some will be for us.  Some will be happy and some will be sad.  The duty of a Christian is to love people as God loves them.  God loves those who are against him.  God rejoices with those who rejoice.  God weeps with those who weep.  God does not treat people poorly.  He does not gossip or play favorites.  He always acts in grace, truth, and love.  The only one who can judge the world and everyone in it sent his one and only son as a sacrifice of love to save the world.  Our words, actions, and thoughts should have the same motivation.

We must be careful in how we respond to what is happening around us.  We recognize the sorrow and joy of life.  We walk side by side with those experiencing the sorrows and joys of life.  But we never repay evil with evil.  We change the pattern.  Where we see evil, we respond with good.  While our instincts may tell us to fight fire with fire, our faith leads us down a different path.  Our task is not to hurt, harm, or even to defend.  It is to reconcile.  We are to live in peace and harmony with others as much as we can.  God wants us to be unified with each other.  He wants us to love and support one another.  He does not want the evil of this world to get in the way of Christians living life well.

So we need to be on our guard.  We need to guard our hearts, minds, thoughts, and actions.  Acting in revenge or trying to repay wrong with wrong will not lead us closer to God.  Instead it will lead to our own destruction.  So we trust God.  He ultimately is the judge.  Leave the punishment of wrong to God.  Let us follow him by focusing on doing good as he has called us to do.  This action will never lead us astray.