Bless Your Enemies, Part 1: Give Them to God

Matthew 5:43-48

43 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. 44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; 45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? 47 And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? 48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

Most of us have encountered people throughout the course of our lives who don’t like us. We may try all we can to fit in with them, but it seems no matter what we do, they just don’t accept us.

Some of us have also encountered people who make it their personal mission in life to destroy us and all we care about.

During times like that, it can be hard to think anything good about our enemies. It can be a real test of our faith to be nice to them and wish good things upon them.

But Jesus can help us do the things we can’t.

Jesus said in John 15:5, “without me ye can do nothing.”

I don’t know about you, but this is one area of my life where I struggle at times. Human nature wants to exact pay back on the people who’ve hurt us. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t struggled with this issue at one time or another. Maybe you’ve experienced something similar.

In my daily Bible reading, I recently came upon a passage of Scripture that really helped me realize the importance of giving my enemies to God and letting Him handle the situation.

Romans 12:17-21 says, “Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.”

When people hurt us, it’s easy to pay them back, to say and do all sorts of foolish things to avenge ourselves. But God has a better way. He wants us to take a step back from the situation, take a deep breath, and give our enemies to Him. He wants to be our avenger. He doesn’t want us to take care of the situation ourselves, using our own strength. He wants us to rest in Him and in the power of His might.

Many times we want to see justice payed for the wrongs that have been done to us, but God can’t grant it to us because we’re in the way. We’re in His way, trying to do His work for Him. But we need to remember God knows people and situations a lot better than we do. Only He knows how to pay back the people who’ve hurt us. Only He knows how to give us total justice. He can do a lot better job avenging us than we could ever hope to achieve.