daily java

Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God. For the Scriptures say,
    “I will take revenge;
     I will pay them back,”
     says the Lord.
Instead,
    “If your enemies are hungry, feed them.
     If they are thirsty, give them something to drink.
     In doing this, you will heap
     burning coals of shame on their heads.”
Don’t let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good. (Romans 12:19-21)

When Jesus was tried, convicted and killed, there is one thing that stands out about him: he never answered back. He knew he was innocent and he knew it would do no good to defend himself. So he remained quiet.

That was so apparent when he was taken to see the Israelite King, Herod. Herod was interested in him. He had heard of him and wanted very badly to talk to him. He figured that since he was Jewish too, they would discuss stuff. Maybe even Jesus would do a miracle.

But Herod was a hypocritical person to the max, a poseur, one who tried very hard to balance subservience to Rome with pretending to be a great king himself. He was a debauched person with a debauched court.

I always thought the portrayal of Herod by Josh Mostel in Jesus Christ Superstar was a great one. His court was full of transvestites and weirdoes and he himself was not all that great looking.

It was evident that Jesus had nothing but contempt for him and didn’t even say a word to him. It made Herod so mad.

So it is in my life. In the past couple of years I have had some bad things happen. But I made a decision that I will not answer, and I will not defend. If my life cannot show my dedication, nothing I say will either.

And I will not take revenge. Revenge is for God. One day the accounts will be settled and I will be justified, if I need to be.

And I will be nice to those who have hurt me. I will not necessarily like them, but I will be kind.

Now I have to admit, I fall down here and do not always follow my own advice. I am after all human. When people hurt me, I bleed. That sounds kind of pathetic, but what I mean is I don’t always do the right thing.

But I try. And that is all God wants.

Doing nice things for people who have hurt you affects them far more than doing bad things. Paying back in kind never does any good.

And they may continue to be the way they are. If so, it is not your doing. You not acted like Jesus, they have not.

This does mean that I accept them back into the leadership they left. It just means that I treat them the best I can and allow the love of Jesus to show through me.

I don’t always and I am sorry when I don’t. But evil is prevalent enough without it ruling in my life, too.

High sounding words and I wish I did them better.