Are You Kidding?
Have you ever read the Bible and thought, “God, are you kidding?” God’s answers to what is happening in our lives today, usually does not line up with the world’s answers, your neighbor’s answers, our friends’ answers and unfortunately sometimes they don’t line up with even our teacher’s answers.
Let’s do an exercise: Think back to a time that someone really hurt you. Can you picture it? Now, what was your first response? What did you want to do?
Did you want to retaliate? Did you want to give them a verbal lashing (tell them off)? Did you want to get them in trouble? Did you want to hurt them? Or did you want to pray for them?
Krave, I can hear you now, “Pray for them? Are you kidding?” But that is just what the Bible says to do in Luke:
27 But I say to you who are listening now to Me: [[a]in order to heed, make it a practice to] love your enemies, treat well (do good to, act nobly toward) those who detest you and pursue you with hatred,
28 Invoke blessings upon and pray for the happiness of those who curse you, implore God’s blessing (favor) upon those who abuse you [who revile, reproach, disparage, and high-handedly misuse you]. Luke 6:27-28Amplified Bible (AMP)
35 But love your enemies and be kind and do good [doing favors [a]so that someone derives benefit from them] and lend, expecting and hoping for nothing in return but [b]considering nothing as lost and despairing of no one; and then your recompense (your reward) will be great (rich, strong, intense, and abundant), and you will be sons of the Most High, for He is kind and charitable and good to the ungrateful and the selfish and wicked.
36 So be merciful (sympathetic, tender, responsive, and compassionate) even as your Father is [all these].
37 Judge not [neither pronouncing judgment nor subjecting to censure], and you will not be judged; do not condemn and pronounce guilty, and you will not be condemned and pronounced guilty; acquit and forgive and [c]release (give up resentment, let it drop), and you will be acquitted and forgiven and [d]released. Luke 6:35-37Amplified Bible (AMP)
Does it really say forgive them in the last verse? Yes, notice it says forgive them and you will be forgiven,
It doesn’t say to carry it around with you, rehearsing it in your head, and hold a grudge. It really does say PRAY – Pray for their happiness. Treat them well. Pray for God to bless them. Be kind and do good for them expecting nothing in return. Be merciful to them and forgive them.
Everyone on earth has been hurt by someone. I promise you that as you get in the Word and find out for yourself who you are in Christ, the less people will be able to hurt you. But furthermore, when you are hurt, when you apply the Word of God to your life by following what he tells us to do, you will find it hard to hold bitterness in your heart towards people. And when you don’t hold bitterness in your heart you feel better about yourself
We all as Christians are continually working on this principle. Everytime someone hurts us we have another chance to put this into practice.
These verses right here are a prime example of why it is so important for you to get into the Bible and search it out for yourselves. You have to do the praying, you have to read the Bible, and you have to hear from God yourselves.
We are blessed with a wonderful church, which allows us to learn from great pastors and teachers, but you have to still get in the Word for yourselves and make sure everything you are taught lines up with the Word. Pastor Dany and I challenge you to do this every service. This is why he gives you an outline online before services even begin.
You need to search out, more in this day and age, than ever before, what you teachers, friends, neighbors, media, and yes, even parents tell you.
My mom taught me this. She used the Word to teach me what was right from wrong. When I would come home as a young girl upset about being teased or what today’s world calls bullying, she would tell me who I was “In Christ” and make me repeat it back to her. She would then say, Faith, you need to not let what everyone else thinks or does bother you, get in the Word, and do what God says. Then we would pray together. She would send me back the next day to be kind to the person. Boy, I did not want to do that! But, I did. She instructed me to be sure to purposely do or say something kind for or to that person. Sometimes we would think of something together. Those moments made me strong today. I wouldn’t trade them for anything. I thought it was awful then, but I learned I was more than what anyone else said I was, I was and am what God says I am.
Now when things happen, I know how to go to the Word and search it out and pray and do what God says to do, no matter how backward it may seem. I don’t go to my Mom (well sometimes I do) and I don’t get a general consensus from my friends on what to do. Again, I read the Word, search it out, pray and do what God says to do.
Teens, if you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior, have a Bible, attend a church with biblical teaching and have a good mentor, whether a Christian parent, youth pastor, etc. then you have everything you need to pursue your own relationship with God. It is imperative that you do this for yourselves. NO ONE ELSE CAN DO IT FOR YOU!!!!
So remember: Search, Pray, and Do!!!
Our Question for this week: Luke 6:49 What is a man who merely hears and does not practice doing My words?