blessing people who curse you

The following is an article I wrote for the Read Freedom jail ministry here at Cooper County in Boonville, MO

Bless those who persecute you. Don’t curse them; pray that God will bless them. (Romans 12:9)

What kind of freakazoid would advocate blessing people who curse him? Somebody curses me and I’ll take care of him.

That is normal. But the weird thing of Christianity is that God calls us to something more than normal. He calls us to him. And in him, things are different.

Look at Jesus on the cross. He was dying and people were killing him and it wasn’t his fault. He didn’t do the crime but he was still having to do the time. But he looks down from the cross at those who were making fun of him and he said “Father, forgive them, because they don’t know what they are doing.”

As he is dying he forgives. Then he says, Okay, Johnny, you do the same. (He calls me Johnny because he has known me a long time) I say, how? How do I look at people who want to do me harm and bless them? His answer: I will help you.

And you know what? He does help me. I sure can’t do it myself. As far as I am concerned, hurt me and my family and a shotgun is not good enough for you.

But he says, forgive them. Why? Over in another scripture he says: because I have forgiven you.

But have I done as much to God as they have done to me? Yeah, I guess I have. I have done stupid things, I have broken laws, I have hurt people, I have been, in general, a stupid person. Yet he forgave me.

Now their version of being a stupid person may be different than mine. But even so. God calls us to a different way of looking at things. It is a way of looking at things through his eyes. And in his eyes, he forgives.

But what if they don’t ask? The people at the foot of the cross didn’t ask either. He just went ahead and did it.

And I want to tell you, it is a lot easier to live when the need for revenge isn’t sitting there inside you percolating like sorry coffee, ready to burn your insides up.

That kind of anger and resentment hurts you more than it does them anyway. They live fine with you mad. You, on the other hand, have a lot of trouble being mad for a long time. It will eat you up.

And Jesus came to forgive us. That was why he came in the first place, to forgive us and bring us back to God.

His forgiveness starts with you.

daily java

Daily Java:

Will merchants try to buy it to sell it in their shops? (Job 41:6)

I am at a garage sale right now. It is being sponsored by the prison ministry that we are helping in.

Garage sales are fun. But the one thing I especially like to do is talk to the people coming up. But they don’t always want to talk back.

For the most part, people coming to garage sales want to just look. I always like the interaction,

That is the way with life. My dad could talk to anyone. If necessary, he would even talk to animals. He just liked to talk.

I inherited some of that. My son said one time that when I met someone, I asked too many questions. Then he stopped for a moment and said, But at least I find out a lot about people.

And that’s true. I love to find out about people. I never could figure how a person would go through life and not want to meet others.

The stuff we have for sale, for the most part, is general garage sale stuff. In other words, not worth a whole lot. But, on the other hand, you find some good stuff.

We had a Jeep child’s riding toy for sale, no battery, but otherwise good. One boy was entranced and we sold it to him for five dollars.

There was a child’s basketball hoop and a fort looking thing that had a swing and slide on it. That went pretty quickly.

I have gotten to visit with some friends while we waited, but the day is hot and muggy, so we tend to be slow.

But all of the stuff goes to a good cause, the Set Free Prison Ministry. That will help a lot especially with the families of inmates. That is one of the main thrusts of this work.

More people coming. I always try to bless them in some way when they leave. Sometimes it is the only way people can come into contact with the Spirit of God.

i was blessed with a mother who loved

Who can find a virtuous and capable wife? She is more precious than rubies. Her husband can trust her, and she will greatly enrich his life. She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life. … Her children stand and bless her. Her husband praises her: There are many virtuous and capable women in the world, but you surpass them all! Charm is deceptive, and beauty does not last; but a woman who fears the Lord will be greatly praised. Reward her for all she has done. Let her deeds publicly declare her praise. (Proverbs 31:10-12, 28-31 NLT)

I was blessed with a mother who loved my father, stayed at home to raise her children, was almost always there when we needed her. She was the classic mother.

Yes, she had her failings and her problems. But she also had a lot of love for us.
And she taught us the best way she could.

She took us to church, and many times was my Bible school teacher. She taught us about the love of God and about the Bible at home as much as she could. All of her activity, just about, was centered around the church.

She did what she could to bring us up in the knowledge of God and his grace.
I have known a lot of people over the years who came from dysfunctional families.

Maybe the mother was an alcoholic or abusive. Maybe she was an absent or uncaring mother. It could be that she was a mother who enabled her husband in the abuse of the children.

Since I have gotten older, it amazes me at the kinds of mothers there are in the world that are absolutely and positively not like mine.

As a child, I figured that I was the norm. And I think that for the most part, I was.

But how sad it is to see others who didn’t have what I had: a loving, caring mother who loved her husband and her family.

My wife had a mother like that, too. Even though our mothers were as different as night and day in a lot of ways, at the same time, they were the same quality of mother. Both loved their husbands and took care of their families full-time.

And I am so grateful. I am grateful that I had a mother who was like that. I am grateful that she had a mother who was like that, and that I have a wife who is a mother like that.

God blessed me. And he blessed my father when he gave him my mother. He knew that, too, all his life, and died secure in the knowledge that if anything was true, his wife loved him and loved her children.

Thank God for our mothers. Let us publicly praise them