A very interesting concept about people today is that we constantly talk about world peace and harmony. If we fight for peace, it makes more war. If we love for peace, it makes more peace. There is always some sort of war that America is fighting. People do not enact anything peaceful in their own lives when they want to see world peace. Do you know what this is called? It's called hypocrisy. Gandhi once said, "Be the change you wish to see in the world." Peace has to happen domestically before we can even begin to implement it on a global scale. Everybody supposedly wants peace, but we all refuse to exemplify just that in other peoples' lives. If we can learn how to love for peace, maybe people will stop dying for it because if you have to fight for peace, world peace is impossible. So the question is: How can we live in harmony with one another? Fortunately for us, the tools are given in Scripture: Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep. Be in agreement with one another. Do not be proud; instead, associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own estimation. Do not repay evil for evil. Try to do what is honourable in everyone's eyes (Romans 12:14-17).
There it is: how we are to live in peace and harmony amongst each other. When I first looked at this passage I thought to myself, "Wow, no wonder it's so hard." When somebody persecutes us, our primitive instinct is to attack back, not to say something nice in return, let alone bless him or her. That's just human nature, but the thing with the Holy Spirit is that with Him you can act against the natural occurrences of the flesh. It's easy to celebrate with others who are celebrating, but it's much more difficult to cry with those who cry. We'd rather speak our mind instead of avoiding conflict — the "agree to disagree" principle. We easily allow our pride to consume us and become conceited. So few of us are humble; we love the praises that we receive from others, which are fine, but only to a certain extent. We think that because something may have worked out well for us in the past that it's the only way, no other alternatives, so we assume that our supposed wisdom is plausible and will con others into doing what we want them to do instead of what's actually best for them according to what God wants them to do. The common trend is to fight evil with evil — to fight fire with fire. This is incredibly stupid. Rather, we must fight evil with good — fight fire with water. With water we can extinguish fire, and so with good we can extinguish evil. Do all these things against the natural occurrences of the flesh and you will be considered honourable before man and blameless before God.
I've listed seven principles taken from the aforementioned passage in the book of Romans, but let's take each of these tools one at a time. (It's interesting how I broke down this passage to seven basic principles, for in the Bible the number 7 symbolises perfection and completion. I did not plan to break it down to specifically seven at all.) The first principle is: "Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse." As I said before, our instinct is to curse someone who curses us first because that's the immediate, natural response as part of the human psyche. We don't put the childhood principle, "think before you act" into play. I could apply Jesus' "turn the other cheek" principle here, but that's not what I'm going to talk about. I'm going to identify who the persecutors are and the actions we're supposed to take when they attack us.
Psalm 10:2, In arrogance the wicked relentlessly pursue the afflicted; let them be caught in the schemes they have devised. In many situations we have seen gatherings of unwavering evil. One example would be Hitler against the Jews, and anyone who wasn't a "perfect" German, for that matter. Also, the countless wars in Africa of tribes murdering inferior tribes, as well as rape and mutilating women's bodies. I can go on, but let's continue. In this prayer and psalm of David, we will see a little later that this prayer is fulfilled.
Psalm 31:15, The course of my life is in Your power; deliver me from the power of my enemies and from my persecutors. David is very right in this psalm for the fact that the course of our lives are in God's hands. He has the ability to deliver us from our enemies, or hand us over to them. The question is: What have you done to earn deliverance from your enemies with God's help? Of course, there are the significant few whom God delivers from their enemies without them asking for it. An example would be in my own life. If you read my blog entry, "How I Came to My Faith," this will be reiterate for you. But if you have not, I'll try to keep this brief. I was 5-years-old in Detroit and facing immense brutality from much older Caucasian kids because of the colour of my skin. Of course, at this age, I wasn't very aware of God's existence, so because of the plans He has for me He delivered me from my enemies. My dad found a new job and we moved to Pennsylvania. However, it wasn't all hunky dory after that. I suffered from depression for the next twelve years of my life, which jeopardised my faith in God. I claimed to be atheist at the time, but I was technically agnostic and put blame on God at the same time. So, after twelve years, I got saved at the age of seventeen. I was fortunate enough to have a stubborn father to take me to church every Wednesday and Sunday, and the father I was given was part of God's plan long before I was born. I began to pray, and I was eventually saved and my life became wealthy in Christ and needless to say, I lead a good life. So you see, God really does have the power to set the course of our lives, even when we don't deserve it. I have no doubt that if I decided to hate and reject God instead of embracing and loving Him, I would be in a much worse place right now. Sine I was too young to know of God's existence and vitality of faith at the age of five (as well as my oblivious nature and personality), God took the course of my life into His own hands. However, after that, He left the decision completely up to me. I chose Jesus, and now He's setting the course of my life towards His kingdom — the deliverance from my enemies and from my persecutors, even though as a sinner, I don't deserve it.
Psalm 119:86, All Your commands are true; people persecute me with lies — help me! This is very common today. There are an over abundance of people who criticise, demean, and persecute Christians based on our beliefs and faith alone. Most of us do our best to follow God's true commands, and so the unbelievers tell us otherwise of our beliefs with lies. I find hilarity in that atheists get upset when we try to convert them to Christianity and demand respect when they themselves try to convert us to atheism. Respect goes two ways. When this happens, we Christians naturally get upset and defend ourselves, but that's the wrong reaction. In our minds we plead for God's help, and that's the right thing to do, but not to magically make our enemies disappear, or to make them fall off a cliff or get hit by a car. I once prayed for God's wisdom and boldness and knowledge so I could know how to respond to the persecutions of unbelievers, and He answered me. That's the action I recommend each of us to take. Due to a lack of knowledge of Scripture, many Christians have no idea how to respond to an unbeliever's "rationality." If you don't know how to respond, ask for God's help to give you more wisdom and boldness and Scriptural knowledge, but you have to actually do that by reading His Word. And with these three assets, you can then bless our persecutors and not curse them, which will hopefully bring them to Christ eventually. Or you could just say nothing and walk away; this is a better alternative than going into dissension and arguing. You may be accused of cowardice, but it takes wisdom to know that sometimes, no words are better than a lot.
Matthew 5:11-12, 44: "Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and falsely say every kind of evil against you because of Me. Be glad and rejoice, because your reward is great in heaven. For that is how they persecuted the prophets who were before you... But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you..." Verses 11 and 12 are the passage I mentioned earlier that I paraphrase to unbelievers who persecute me. Because of Jesus' promise here, never allow peoples' persecutions to bring you down or damage or even question your faith. Despite all belief, it's a good thing that these people are demeaning you. If they're persecuting you because of your faith, you've obviously done something to shed God's light on them and for some reason they're upset to have witnessed it because it's against everything they believe in — it's what you call a paradigm. So what's their defence mechanism? To attack the believers. The apostles and other billions of Christians before us were persecuted in the same exact ways and even worse ways. And by worse I mean absolute carnage and bloodshed (the many, many Roman emperors who've murdered millions upon millions of Christians). So we have it easy. However, this is no excuse to persecute them in return. As Jesus has said in verse 44, we must love them and pray for them. And do so with love and compassion, not obligation.
Matthew 10:23, "When they persecute you in one town, escape to another. For I assure you: You will not have covered the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes." We can never escape from persecution. No matter where you go, there will always be someone to persecute and hate you because of your faith. You can try and run all you want, but you'll keep running into persecutors until the day Jesus comes. Jesus did tell us that people would hate us because of His name in the prior verse, after all, and He also told us that people would persecute us and even kill us because of His name (Matthew 24:9). God Himself said that this would happen: "Because of this, the wisdom of God said, 'I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and persecute,' so that this generation may be held responsible for the blood of the prophets shed since the foundations of the world..." (Luke 11:49-50). But what does this mean? Some of you may be wondering, "Why would God do this? Why would He send His prophets and servants out just to be killed?" Well, why would God send His only begotten Son to be killed? For the benefit and salvation of mankind. In this verse Jesus was quoting Himself from Matthew 23:33-34 with a more black and white answer: "Snakes! Brood of vipers! How can you escape being condemned to Hell? This is why I am sending you prophets, sages, and scribes. Some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will flog in your synagogues and hound from town to town." Jesus is referring to the wicked that persecute and kill Christians, and He provided the answer as to why this is to happen: to expose the wicked who will not escape their condemnation to Hell (unless they accept Christ, of course).
John 15:20, "Remember the word I spoke to you: 'A slave is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My Word, they will also keep yours." As Jesus Christ's servants, we are no greater than Him, so we receive the same punishment from our enemies that He received, nothing greater nor less. (This even includes imprisonment and death. See Luke 21:12 and read Matthew 23:34 once more.) There is quite a distinction here: Those who don't keep His Word will persecute us and those who do keep His Word, they will also keep ours. The question is: Will you be able to keep your faith and stand during persecution and tribulation (see Revelation 6:16-17)?
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