March 12th

Are you like me and you still struggle with demanding to defend yourself? Even after I have seen the following verses work so well in my life, it is still a struggle in some circumstances, where I want to react rather than choose to heap coals of fire on their heads. Let me explain.

Romans 12:19-21 Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Growing up my mom would teach us over and over again to “heap coals on their heads.” She was referring to this verse. When kids at school were mean to us or made fun of us because we were poor or whatever, she taught us to just smile at them and let the Lord have it. She ingrained it in us that “they just need Jesus.” She taught us not to take it personally because if they didn’t know Jesus then why would we think that they would be kind. She said, “But you know Jesus so you should be kind. So just remember that when you are kind to people who are unkind, you are heaping coals of fire on their heads.”

Now lest you are thinking “oh yeah, burn baby burn!” take in the whole verse and concept. They need Jesus, they can’t rescue themselves, they are slaves to a big, slick deceiver which is where you would be if you hadn’t already been rescued. Let God do His thing, and it will all work out as He promised in these verses. Ours is to be kind and be an example to others.

I do still struggle even though this worked in my own life. More than once I have had people come up to me later and tell me that my kind reaction to those being unkind to me made them examine themselves and they asked me how I was able to be kind in those circumstances. I didn’t even know those particular people were watching or noticed. You know what my answer was? By the grace of God alone!

It is human to be hurt, frustrated, defensive, etc. But the Holy Spirit is transforming us from who we are into who we were created to be, -the image of God. This is one area that we can ask the Holy Spirit to help us surrender and be transformed. And really it actually may help if you remember that you are heaping coals of fire on their heads. It also doesn’t hurt to remember that nobody escapes the revenge handed out by God.

These are hard truths to acknowledge and even harder to practice. As humans we can’t do it except by the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit. But it is crucial that we do. Remember, peoples’ lives are dependent on being reached with the gospel, this is not a matter of rudeness, mistreatment, disrespect or offensive actions, this is a matter of life and death. The enemy will do EVERYTHING he can to ruin your impact, influence, witness and reputation so that you can not reflect Jesus to others. So from now on, when you are disrespected, etc., see it as a scheme of the enemy trying to dismantle your witness and don’t let him win! Be determined to defeat his attempts to destroy your mission.

Think about this, Jesus never demanded respect or defended His honor. As a matter of fact, He did the opposite because He had a greater goal in mind. He was not about to let the enemy stop His mission. Let’s not let the enemy stop our mission.

Matthew 26:53-54 “Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?”

Jesus, thank you for being the example for us. Help me to set aside my need for respect and focus on the mission you gave me. Help me to keep my eyes on you and please give me wisdom and discernment. Help me to recognize the schemes of the enemy designed to make me ineffective. Thank you for loving me, teaching me and defending me. Remind me that your opinion of me is the one that matters.