Body: | Taking your own Revenge Is NOT So Sweet!
In his popular book, None of These Diseases, Dr. S.I. McMillan, entitles
one of his chapters, "The High Cost of Getting Even". According to Dr.
McMillan, the failure to possess a spirit of forgiveness makes us
susceptible to many diseases of body and mind. Because we cannot resist the
temptation to get even, we pay the high price of a pound of our own flesh.
Toxic goiter, strokes of apoplexy, heart attacks, high blood pressure,
ulcers and many other serious ailments afflict millions of people, and
often it's a direct result of the inability to forgive.
Dr. McMillan states it might truthfully be written on many thousands of
death certificates that the victims died of "grudgitis". We have heard
people say from between clenched teeth, "I'll get even with that skunk if
it's the last thing I ever do". Too often, it is exactly that. When Jesus
said, "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good unto them that
hate you, and pray for, them who despitefully use you and persecute you"
Matthew 5:44, he was not giving us impractical, pie in the sky, kind of
advice, but sure resources with which to cope with abrasive conflicts. Life
is made up of hurts and conflicts, which arise daily in our personal
relationships. It is only the unresolved conflicts, the harboring of
grudges and resentments, which wreak havoc on spirit and mind and finally
upon flesh. Every unresolved conflict produces its own wound. If the scar
tissue isn't planted somewhere upon or within the body, then it is hidden
inside the heart.
C. William Fisher in his book, Don't Park Here, wrote, "One of the most
persistent warnings in traffic and in life is the warning of the danger of
parking, of resting, of settling down, and yet men go right on parking
where they should not." And, of course, they pay the penalty in arrested
development, in stunted personalities, in narrowed wisdom, in limited
lives. No one ever parks in life without paying a price. We cannot afford
to park by attitudes of resentment and hate. If I let myself bear an
unresolved conflict against someone, failing to bring that conflict before
the alter of God's mercy, then it is inevitable that I shall find myself
turning bitter. If I degrade myself to the point where I permit any person
to make me hate him then I am blinded, and rendered impotent to
forgiveness. The most therapeutic petition in the world, the Lord's Prayer,
is clear on this point, "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who
trespass against us"; or, if we forgive others who trespass against us. In
short, God's forgiveness towards us depends on our forgiveneness of others.
Have you parked beside an unloving, unforgiving Move on beyond your hurts,
adversities, Take a good look at yourself. Have you parked beside an
unloving, unforgiving spirit? If you have, move on. Move on beyond your
hurts, adversities, tragedies, set-backs. Move on to wholeness and
happiness that comes from not being overcome of evil, but overcoming evil
with good.
The key message of Romans 12:14-21 is that revenge is not so sweet.
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