Ar-Ouch

When I was a new Pastor at MCF as the new Youth Pastor, there was one time that I led a devotion in one of the youth gatherings/fellowship. I shared about how it is wrong to associate friends with things and laugh at it. There went an series of arguments about it. Defending what I think was right, them, defending why it was just ok. Then after a few weeks, the chairman of the youth ministry told me that they were going to have a meeting. But in that meeting they will not be inviting me. Little did I know that they would be meeting with Youth Adviser,  and that the agenda was about me.

When the idea that they would be meeting about me sunk in, i was hurt. I was dreaming for the position of Youth Pastor for a very long time. There was a passion in me to lead this group and these men and women towards God, then. At the first signon conflict, it's as is that I was betrayed.

There was one class during my seminary days that we discussed a similar case study about one pastor who was hurt with they church he was leading. And that's one of the time that I really felt the hurt by that attack.

And that's one of the things that we experience from time to time. There are people that we love, we serve, we live with--people that we consider close to us would hurt us. And it's one of the most painful thing that we feel. Even our neighbor would hurt us.

And the response that we would easily resonate with us is pay evil with evil. We want revenge. We our out for blood. Whatever the people did to hurt us, we want to do the same thing and even to a certain extent something much worse to them. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

That's our natural respose to evil done to us. If we could have our way, and there were times that we did have our way, we would have gone all the way so that people would pay for the evil they did to us.

We have saying in Filipino: "Kapag binato ka ng bato, batuhuin mo ng tinapay" Madaling sabihin pero masarap gawin. we want people to feel the same and much worse pain that they inflicted upon us.

That's our normal way of thinking.

But as Kingdom People... as people who represents God and His Kingdom in this world, we are called to a different kind of value system so that our response would be different to these kind of evil done to us.

But what has Jesus have to say about this?
Matthew 5:38-48

What did Paul has to say?
Romans 5:8

One Point:
Overcome evil by doing good! Romans 12:17-21

We do good, because goodness exposes evil. We do good because we are recipient of that same goodness from God! We can also do good because we can trust God that He sees everything and hears everything and He will be the one to avenge for us. We do good because God is good!

Temptation: Jump!

The second temptation that Satan majored in when he tempted Jesus was daring Jesus to jump from the top of the temple. Satan even quoted scripture to convince Jesus. Satan claimed that whatever Jesus do in this life, God will have to save Jesus, because Jesus was loved by God and is special in His eyes.

The temptation is essentially a temptation to presume on God. It is twisting the arm of God so that God would be forced to do something. If Jesus did jump, the Father would have to save Jesus. It has taken that long for God to bring Jesus in that moment in time. And  the Father would not allow anything bad to happen to Him. Jesus safety is an utmost priority.

This temptation is acting irresponsibly (most of the time in the guise of faith) then expecting God to breakthough and perform feats of salvation. Many of us are guilty into falling into this subtle trap. We would present God our prayer requests and in 'acts of faith, we become answers to our prayer even though it may defy logic, wisdom and even the very principles of God found in His Word. And then when we find ourselves caught in the chaos of our foolish decision, we expect no, we even demand God to save us.

Yes God is our Savior and Redeemer. He will never turn back on that role. But also remember, God is God, He is our King and our Sovereign. We don't play with God. We don't stiff arm God to do our will nor do we act as if God is our genie in a bottle who will obey our every command and longing. We don't rashly act upon things 'in faith' nor 'visions' because is God. We should be the ones to obey, to abide, to submit. We should never presume, that because it is a good idea, God is already backing us up. It should terrify us that we might be holding on to our ideas and implementing them in the name of God. God has given us His Word and the Holy Spirit to teach us and remind us of His promises and principles. Let them be the guide.