“This one is going to be a hard one to swallow…believe me…I know, because I had to preach to me before I could share with you. Because this lesson calls for you, in simple terms, to be a wimp. A fool. A ‘doormat’. This one says stop keeping score. I’ll begin by quoting a few verses from scripture.
Psalm 34:14
“Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.”
Hebrews 12:14
“Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy;”
1 Peter 3:11
“…he must seek peace and pursue it.”
I don’t know if you’ve noticed a pattern here. The words that have stood out to me here are ‘SEEK PEACE…PURSUE PEACE…MAKE EVERY EFFORT’…
OK, let me show you how I understand this. Go all the way back to Genesis 16. Abram’s wife, Sarai, offers him her maidservant Hagar to sleep with so that she can have his baby since Sarai was way past menopause. Note: Sarai offered. Nobody blindsided her. Nobody went behind her back. Now Hagar falls pregnant and Sarai is jealous. She starts mistreating her and abusing Hagar until she cannot take it anymore and runs away. The angel of the Lord finds her in the desert and asks her where she is going. She tells him that she’s running away from Sarai. See what the angel says to her in Gen 16:9. “Go back to your mistress and submit to her.” This poor woman was given to an old, married man by the man’s own wife. There is no record that she ever tried to seduce him or tried to get rid of Sarai. After she falls pregnant, which was the point all along, she is bullied and abused till she decides she’d rather be unemployed, single and pregnant…that should give a clue as to the level of abuse she’d suffered. But then a messenger of God tells her not only to go back, but to SUBMIT???
Here’s the lesson I was forced to learn. It doesn’t matter whose fault your issue is. It doesn’t matter who started it. It doesn’t matter who wronged who and who owes whom an apology. God clearly says YOU make the first move. He doesn’t say ‘Wait for peace.’ No. He instructs us to SEEK IT…to MAKE EVERY EFFORT…and I’m afraid that means sometimes forgetting about the apology we are owed and just forgiving anyway. That means letting go. Go to the person who’s hurt you…not to make a point but to make peace. And that also means sometimes you’re going to look like a weak little walk-over. But in the greater scope of things, SO WHAT??? Who cares if you look weak and stupid? If that’s what it takes to be holy as my Father is holy, then let me be weak and stupid!
One last example: Our Saviour. Didn’t He come and give His life for a bunch of sinners who ;
1. Didn’t deserve it,
2. Didn’t ASK for His salvation,
3. Didn’t and STILL don’t appreciate His great sacrifice.
He came down first. “While we were yet sinners” His word says. He came to SEEK peace, to OFFER peace…did He ‘make every effort’??? Well, He DIED…I’m not sure what more He could’ve done to make peace between us and the Father. We all know He was innocent, but for the sake of peace He said, ‘I’ll be guilty, and you may take on my righteousness.’ If that’s not practising what you preach, I don’t know what is…
Our prayer today is simply that God will give us the STRENGTH to go out to our enemies and seek peace…because that is an action that is clearly impossible for the weak.”
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