Coffee With Pat
Written By: Pat Aman
copyright 2006
All rights reserved
"When you can truly forgive someone who has hurt you for no reason at all, God smiles." Pastor Pat Aman Have you ever been so surprisingly hurt by someone, that you had thoughts of getting even. This is not the way God would have it done. (Romans 12: 17-18) "Do not repay anyone evil for evil," "Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone." I have found out by personal experience that you can be hurt badly by someone out of the blue. They will just go off on you for no reason at all. I have also found out that people who are like that, are people who are hurting inside. They have been hurt so bad, that they do not know how to love anyone, just vent their hurt by hurting others. It is sad when this happens. All we can do is pray for the person, that God will heal their hurt and attitudes. Let us discuss the reason for not getting even. First of all just knowing that the Lord forbids our taking revenge should be sufficient to keep us from doing it. We want to obey our Lord, whether or not we understand all the reasons for His commands. In this matter, however, the Lord wants us both to obey and to know why. God doesn't want us to do evil. The fact that someone else does evil to us doesn't change that. He wants us to "do what is right," even if others do what is wrong. As God sees it, and as we need to see it, the problem when we 'get even" is that we are doing exactly that. The other person has sunk to a low level, and we are getting down there with him. If our enemy were destitute, would we want to lose our assets too and get even? If he were sick, would we want to lose our health and get even? Of course not. Then if he has done evil, why should we lose our integrity by getting even? God says in effect, "Don't get even; come up higher." He wants us to be better people. When we respond to God's command and forsake revenge, we save both ourselves and others a lot of grief. As Scripture says, "If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other." (Galatians 5:15)
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