One Heart - Be OneSample

REVENGE

“Never take revenge, my friends, but instead let God's anger do it. For the scripture says, "I will take revenge, I will pay back, says the Lord." Instead, as the scripture says: "If your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them a drink; for by doing this you will make them burn with shame." Do not let evil defeat you; instead, conquer evil with good.” Romans 12:19-21 GNB

Anger, hatred, bitterness, resentment, and revenge are part of a natural instinct and a normal response when someone wrongs you. No one wants to feel like they let a culprit “get away with it.” Our natural sense of self-protection compels us to act to avoid feeling vulnerable as if there is nothing we can do to right the wrong. However, forgiving someone doesn’t make you a pushover, and it’s not about letting the other person “off the hook.” Instead, forgiveness is about overcoming your anger and quelching your desire to punish the other person. Contemplating how to “get payback” negatively impacts your physical, mental, and emotional health. Studies show that focusing on revenge increases stress, inhibits mental functions, and weakens the immune system; the negative emotions that you harbour do more harm to yourself than the person who offended you.

Conversely, practicing forgiveness has been linked to lower blood pressure, reduced fatigue, and an improved quality of sleep. The problem for many of us is that sometimes we claim to forgive a person, but deep down, the anger or resentment lingers. It causes bitterness to enter our hearts through unresolved anger, inability to grieve, and wrong expectations. Bitterness is a poison that defiles people around you through gossip, slander, outbursts of anger, negativity, a critical spirit, division, sarcasm, insults, wrath, and meanness (Eph.4:31-32). The cure for bitterness is the grace of God enabling one to forgive and reconcile (Heb.12:14-15).

PRAYER POINTS

ME: Ask the Lord to help you discern what specific person or situation angered you. Then, ask Him to help bring the situation into perspective. Give the person by name into the hand of the Lord. Ask the Lord to help you to come to a place of forgiveness. Remember that forgiveness is not to pardon a person’s sin but to help you to become free from the person or situation that has kept you emotionally in bondage. Speak forgiveness to the person who caused the pain.

US: Pray that the Lord will help the Church in your nation to be an instrument that can facilitate the removal of this root of hatred, bitterness, and revenge in the hearts of many people. Pray that the Lord would use us to shine His light of truth into the darkness and expose our long-standing racial inequity, our idolatry of culture and nationalism, and any form of injustice or oppression.

THEM: Pray that the Holy Spirit will minister deliverance and healing to thousands of angry people who do not yet know the freedom of forgiveness.

Remember your John 17 memory verse.

“I learned a long time ago that some people would rather die than forgive. It’s a strange truth, but forgiveness is a painful and difficult process. It’s not something that happens overnight. It’s an evolution of the heart.” - Sue Monk Kidd