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“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. “
Colossians 3:12-15
Vengeance. It’s what we as humans seem to seek most. Even on a small scale.
The guy cuts us off at the intersection- “I hope he gets his,” we
say.
We want things to be set right in our eyes. We want those who deserve to pay to pay and those who deserve praise, (and we often have ourselves in mind), to get that praise.
Today’s question:
Does God want us to have vengeance or love?
In this post…
I Need an Apology!
We are living in very interesting times.
This is the era of the ‘nones’- (those who do not identify with any faith) and with that comes some interesting cultural consequences.
We are selfish by nature. It is just called being human. Left to our own devices we can live our whole lives angry at one another, insisting on an apology from our moms- Lord knows us moms are not perfect, our employers for not giving us enough credit, our teachers for not meowing back at us when we decide we are now a cat (yes this is a real thing happening right now), our government for not recognizing our need, our sister for forgetting our birthday, the checkout clerk at Walmart for not acknowledging that eggs need to go at the top of the bag so they don’t end up a slimy mess in the trunk of my car.
I can go on forever. We all need an apology.
But does our anger, need for acknowledgment, that vendetta or cause we want to destroy others over, bring us any peace?
Does God want us to have vengeance or love?
Love.
You see, we are not ‘nones’- we are disciples of Christ. This means we do not operate from our sinful, very human, want to destroy people for believing ‘chickens are our spirit animal’ (or whatever the cause is) place in our human makeup.
We have been transformed, which means we operate from a place of love.
Let’s look at today’s passage again-
“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. “
— Colossians 3:12-15
What Does Brings US Peace?
So now I ask you- Does God want vengeance or love?
Does His word here say that we need to hurl insults and harbor anger?
Compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forgiveness, and above all, love.
This is what the peace of Christ is in our hearts.
But is Love easy?
The Hard, but Good Truth About Love
Does that mean we need to compromise our values? Does that mean that everyone is just going to get along? No- because not everyone, in fact, the majority of people today are not looking at the Bible for guidance to find peace. Even many who say they are Christians are not living with Colossians 3:12-15 in mind.
But today I challenge you, as hard as loving our enemies is, as hard as forgiveness is, as hard as it may be to follow the prescription given here in Colossians, just love.
You will be amazed at the peace it will bring.
That is today’s wisdom from above.
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