Wilderness Wanderings

"I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty." (Revelation 1:8).

There are a few strange differences between our God and us. Well, more than a few! But a few I'm interested in right now, like these: God is infinite, but we are finite. God is omnipresent (He's present everywhere), but we can only be in one place at a time. God is eternal, but we are temporal. With our human bodies, we can only exist in one place at one time, and that only for a time.

It is these very bodily human limitations of being confined to one time and one space that has been transformed by the digital media we're using for worship these days.

All of a sudden the pastor that used to only be available at 10am Sunday morning (one time) at the church building (one place) is available anytime and anyplace if you want to have a worship service—even multiple times and places at once! Just go to YouTube, and there you find the pastor, ready to worship with you, together with musicians and readers who can also join you wherever and whenever you want them to.

But, lest we think we're becoming like God with our abilities to transcend the limitations of time and space, it's worth thinking about the cost.

Because on the flip side, it is a scattered worship service, recorded on different days in different places with different people, that goes out to a scattered people, who likewise participate in the worship on different days in different places and with different people.

In gaining the abilities to transcend time and space through digital media, we have lost the embodied nature of human community—that unique thing that can only be fully experienced in one place, at one time, with other embodied, three-dimensional human people.

So, what am I getting at?

Well, for now: digital worship is a huge blessing, allowing us to remain connected in common songs, prayers, and scriptures before our One God who was, who is, and who will be meeting us in that scattered worship, no matter when or where we participate. As the eternal God who is everywhere present, He's not thwarted in the least by our lack of a common time or place. He is with us in all times and in all places.

But our time and space transcending God—the God who is, and who was, and who is to come—is the very One who gave up His transcendence in order to take on our embodied limitations. He came in Jesus Christ to be born, live, die, rise, and ascend each in a single place at a single time alongside of real, human people.

The eternal Word became temporal flesh, the created-in-the-image-of-God kind of human flesh. Apparently, God's image and God's grace, love, and forgiveness were mediated to us better through the confines of time and space than through spiritual transcendence.

So, despite this coming to you digitally right now, I think God's grace is still mediated to us better through the embodied community of our fellow spacetime-limited image bearers than it is through the transcendence of our digital media.

If that's true, well then, maybe it's worth calling a friend or a neighbour over to your lawn or porch to safely participate in the songs, prayers and scriptures of worship with you this week. At one time. In one place. Trusting, that the transcendent God who was, who is, and who is to come still comes to us in the very embodied times, spaces and people among whom we gather when we worship and live day to day.

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse…Don't pay back evil with evil. Be careful to do what everyone thinks is right. If possible, live in peace with everyone. Do that as much as you can. My dear friends, don't try to get even. Leave room for God to show his anger. It is written, "I am the God who judges people. I will pay them back," says the Lord. Do just the opposite. Scripture says, "If your enemies are hungry, give them food to eat. If they are thirsty, give them something to drink. By doing those things, you will pile up burning coals on their heads." Don't let evil overcome you. Overcome evil by doing good (Romans 12:14, 17-21).

What do we do in the face of evil? This is the question that ends Romans 12. The question is not about evil out there somewhere. Paul is writing to the church about love. The full question is, "How do we love our enemies when they do evil to us"? This was not meant for human governments, but rather for individual Christians when people intentionally hurt us. Here is the answer: "Don't let evil overcome you. Overcome evil by doing good."

There is a recognition that evil is very insidious. It begins small, and if the trickle is not stopped, it will become a flood that fills us up. In the end, it will overcome us. Evil works that way. It grows. It begins with a thought, a flash of anger and builds until it bursts out of us.

Evil will grow and poison everything it touches. It is said that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, perpetrators of the Columbine High School massacre, were motivated by revenge. They felt mistreated, rejected, and abused, and this was a way of taking revenge and getting back—evil responding to evil, hate responding to hate. It was reported that they shouted as they entered into the building, "This is for all the people who made fun of us all these years," and then they laughed and opened fire. Those two allowed hate to take root in their hearts, and it grew until the fruit of it erupted in violence.

This idea lies at the heart of the epic fantasies The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. Both of these stories also contain the Biblical antidote: love. How do we counter evil? By overcoming it with good.

Remember that we are talking about sincere love. This is the agape of God towards us. We don't deserve God's love, yet he gives it to us. God comes to us in the blood of Jesus and forgives all the evil we have done. He over comes the evil we commit with his goodness.

To overcome evil with good is God's master plan of salvation. His purpose is to reclaim His creation from the control of evil, transform it, and bring it back under the control of His righteousness. In other words, He will overcome the world's evil with His good. In following the command of Christ to "bless and not curse" (Matt. 5:44; Luke 6:28) and by returning good for evil, we do as God does, and we become active participants in His great plan for the world.

We need to understand this. We also need to believe that this is true. Only if we believe this will be get Paul's invitation to "leave room for God to show his anger." Some have suggested that we ought to let God get revenge for us because "He can hurt 'em a whole lot worse than we can!" However, the wrath of God is never retaliatory or spiteful; it is always redemptive. God pursues the sinner, cuts off his escape, confronts her with the consequences of sin, chastises him, and makes her sin miserable.

Why? To bring to repentance. To give grace. To redeem our enemy as He has redeemed us. When we take our own revenge, we stand between God and His beloved. Furthermore, we take the Creator's place on the seat of judgment in the life of another creature.

Jesus experienced all the hatred and injustice and violence that the leaders of this world could pour out on him. He was victim of the mindless hate and the violence of the crowd and the Roman soldiers who had nothing against him personally but who used him as an excuse to vent the hatred in their hearts.

But Jesus did not take on and return their hate, and He did not let it change Him from His course of revealing the Father's love, His love even for God's enemies. Love is stronger than hate because hate enslaves, and the decision to love brings freedom. He forgave His enemies.

Christ, when he died by submitting himself to the hatred of his accusers, offered us a solution to the hatred and injustice of the world. Without him, it is eye for an eye and tooth for tooth. But now there is a new way. The way of love. This does not mean that justice has been abolished. But it means that we are relieved of the burden of justice. We can leave that to God. And we can love our enemies because God loves us.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. (Matthew 5:9)

It is no secret that our world is increasingly polarized and conflicted today.

It's true South of the border. It's true here. It's true in other parts of the world. It's true in our politics. It's true in our racial identities. It's true in our wealth disparities. It's true in our immigration systems. It's true even in the church.

We are conflicted today. And we seem to be drawing on an increasingly shallower well to address these conflicts. Our attention span is shorter, our willingness to listen is lower, and our confidence in our own position is stronger.

What role do the children of God, walking as the contrast community of Christ play in such times as these?

We are those who know what reconciliation is, because we have been reconciled to God.

We are those who know what forgiveness is, because we have been forgiven by Christ. We are those who know what it means to have been welcomed into a place of belonging, despite our undeserving and our inability.

We are those who claim to the One who has broken down every dividing wall of hostility between races, genders, and more, bringing peace through His cross.

We are those who know what it is to have received love, mercy, grace, hospitality, joy, peace, and more. But our knowing and our receiving have not always translated into our living. Sometimes we are the ones who refuse to listen, who refuse to forgive, who refuse to humble ourselves, who refuse to confess when we've been in the wrong or wronged someone else. And yet the forgiveness of God in Christ through the Spirit comes to you and I yet again as the promise of peace is continually offered through the cross. Will you receive it?

Because a time like this calls for "little Christ's" (i.e. Christians). It calls for the children of God who come in open-handed humility with nothing more than they have received in Christ, ready to offer it through the Spirit for the healing of the nations and the blessing of the world.

So today: Is there forgiveness you need to seek? Forgiveness you need to give? A listening ear you could extend? Humility you could show? Unwarranted grace (gifts) that you could offer?

How can you and I be peacemakers in the humble, reconciling, forgiving way of Christ today, right where we are among the people we know best?

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! (1 John 3:1a).

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse…Don't pay back evil with evil. Be careful to do what everyone thinks is right. If possible, live in peace with everyone. Do that as much as you can. My dear friends, don't try to get even. Leave room for God to show his anger. It is written, "I am the God who judges people. I will pay them back," says the Lord. Do just the opposite. Scripture says, "If your enemies are hungry, give them food to eat. If they are thirsty, give them something to drink. By doing those things, you will pile up burning coals on their heads." Don't let evil overcome you. Overcome evil by doing good (14, 17-21). This week we finish our Wilderness Wanderings on Romans 12. Hopefully, they have helped some of you in living the central realities of our new life in Jesus Christ: to love sincerely. I have prepared two podcasts on these concluding verses. They can sound heavy and negative: 'Do not curse' (14); 'Don't pay back evil with evil' (17); 'don't try to get even' (19); and 'Don't let evil overcome you' (21). Yet, there are also positives slipped in: 'Bless those who persecute' (14); 'be careful to do what everyone thinks is right;' (17); 'leave room for God to show his anger' (19); and 'overcome evil by doing good' (21). Today, I will reflect on the possibilities of living this way; while, on Thursday, we will look at it from the perspective of God's justice and anger. The things in these verses may seem like a tall order. The Heidelberg Catechism teaches us that we have a natural tendency to hate God and our neighbor (A 5). That seems about right. As parents, we all observe that our children have a natural tendency towards getting even. Have you ever seen a three-year-old, when another child takes his toy, to offer a second as well? Hardly. The child immediately works to retrieve said toy, usually with violence. Darwinian evolutionary theory made popular the phrase, 'survival of the fittest.' This is a reference to species survival on the macro level. However, it seems to be equally true at the micro level of human relationships. Whether its children playing in the park or adults striving to get ahead in the workplace, we do not tolerate others doing us harm. Our immediate reaction is to seek retaliation. But God calls Christians to be different. This is one of the unique qualities of the followers of Jesus. Why are we not known for this? Why is it that after 2000 years of Christianity non-Christians do not identify the church as that group of people that 'doesn't seek revenge'? Romans 12 begins with a view of God's mercy, we offer ourselves as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to him. This conclusion, not to seek revenge, is lengthy because this is where we keep crawling off the alter! God wants us to return good for evil and we say, 'fat chance', we want justice, in other words, vengeance. In the course of life, we encounter truly difficult people–individuals who wound us, wrong us, betray us, and so make us want to strike back. Justice, we think, demands that they both know what they've done to us and get punished for it in some way. We believe that this is our right. Yet, as gospel people, a sincere love which forgives evildoers should be our response when we are treated badly. This is how we embody the gospel of our God in Christ: 'overcoming evil with good." This is what Jesus did in his ministry and, ultimately, in his death. Jesus met the evil of this world head on with love and grace, not balled-up fists and merciless judgment. Living in love and harmony with difficult and evil people is simply part of what it means to be caught up in the rhythms of the gospel. That's who we are as Christian people. It's wrong to get the greatest gift of God's grace and then turn right around and take revenge on others. The phrase 'my dear friends' could also be translated, 'my dear agape people'. Agape is that special, divine love that we get by grace alone. People who have been graced with God's agape can't turn around and live vengeful lives. Bad things happen. That is an unhappy facet to life in this world. The gospel calls us to absorb such evil, to show Christ to the world not just when doing that is relatively easy but to display the grace of Jesus precisely when it is most difficult. Society says we have a right to justice; to see the evil doer punished. The gospel demands something else. You cannot walk around as a living example of God's grace only to be someone who cannot forgive an offense. The only way into this life is to keep God's mercy towards me clearly in view. To remain sacrificed, to remain submitted to God's way instead of the world's system, requires something greater than natural strength. We can't do this on our own. But that has been Paul's contention all along, 'in view of God's mercy.' We have received; therefore, we can give.

Psalms like this one come to mind as real prayers in our Wilderness Wanderings outside the church building. "My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord." We miss the church building. The community that gathered there. The God who we met and worshiped together there. The font and table, pulpit and candle, beams and brick. It was the tangible place of gathering for worship and for community where so many milestone of our lives were marked. And we miss it. Despite texts like this one from Psalm 84 though, as I've reflected over these past months, I've come to realize that the Old Testament was largely written without a weekly worship service in a building in mind. There was only one Temple, one place of worship. And that, only later in the Old Testament under King Solomon. Before that it was a tent—the Tabernacle. Before that, there was nothing at all. Most Israelites did not live in Jerusalem or Shiloh though, and even when they did make a pilgrimage up to the tent or the Temple for the feasts three times a year: they were not permitted to go inside under the roof. They could only go as far as the outer courts to worship. So: worship at a structure only happened at most three times a year for the Israelites, and even when they did arrive at said structure, they couldn't worship inside it. So why did they long for this place if they'd only rarely saw it and had actually never stepped inside? Well, the answer is that in the Old Testament, the Temple was the one tangible place on Earth where God was said to dwell among His people. "How lovely is your dwelling place" the Psalmist says. This was the reason for awe and worship—the structure marked the dwelling place of God. But now in the New Testament world of the Christian faith we live—Jesus is the one who has "tabernacled" among us. He has become what the Temple was: Immanuel, God who dwells in the flesh with us. The connection point between heaven and earth. As the ascended Lord, He is now with us at all times and in all places, giving us of His Spirit so that we might be equipped for life, worship, and mission wherever we are. That doesn't mean that we don't miss the church building and all that it meant and represented and enabled though, because what is lost is that tangible experience of the body of Christ in action and in worship, gathered in the flesh in the same place at the same time. It's not really about the building, it never has been. We miss the tangible connection to our God in the face of His gathered people. And so, like the Israelites of long ago: our pilgrimage continues with the same longing in our hearts and the same song of prayer on our lips:

Love must be sincere…Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people low position. Do not be conceited. (Romans 12:16).

A student was meeting with her teacher at a table, having tea. The student said to her master, "I've learned all you have to teach me, except one thing. Please teach me about the ways of God."

The teacher took the teapot and started pouring the student's cup full of tea. Soon the cup was full and began to spill over onto the saucer. But the master continued to pour the tea until it spilled over the saucer and then onto the floor.

The student finally said, "Stop, stop, the tea is spilling over. The cup can't take any more." The teacher then looked at the student and said, "You are so full of yourself that there is no room in your life for God. It is not possible for you to learn the ways of God until you learn to empty yourself."

In his mini exhortation on love, the apostle Paul is laying out the ground work for the young church to get along with outsiders, but also with each other. Jesus had told his disciples that the church would be recognized by its love. If only the church would take this more seriously. In this verse the apostle reminds us of two essentials about living in harmony with one another. They are illustrated with the story about the teacher and student. We are so full of ourselves that God has little room to move us towards love.

Being conceited, is the first aspect; it is being full of oneself. Understand, that conceit can come from two directions, which may indeed be two sides of one coin. The first is that we think so much of our own ideas and abilities that we really don't have time for anyone else's.

The other side of the coin comes from a place of insecurity. We try to dominate conversations and swing votes our way, in order to boost our low self esteem. Either way, we have little room for other people and their ideas and abilities. When filled with conceit, we don't listen to others and tend to get angry when we don't get our way.

The way forward is to close our mouths and open our ears. The Reformed church has built this into its decision-making process. We are not to come to meetings with our minds made up. Rather, each member comes to listen to all the others. Only after all the opinions have been heard and weighed are decisions supposed to be made. Humility seeks to understand before being understood. It prefers to communicate rather than do battle with words.

The second matter Paul raises here is quite similar, "do not be proud." But here Paul speaks about our associates. We all have a tendency to associate with people similar to ourselves. But Christians are called to associate with all, especially with those who may be less important, as measured by our cultural standards.

To attain harmony, we must reject the temptation to think high thoughts about oneself, as though we are a superior breed of Christian. There must be no perches of isolation, but rather mingling with people of lower position.

In his letter to the Philippian believers, Paul reminded them of how Jesus climbed down from His heavenly place to suffer the humiliating death of a criminal…for us. We are to do like wise; but there is a caveat. Its easy for us to help others from an attitude of superiority. True harmony happens when we all see each other as equal and equally valuable and equally gifted. The renewed mind of the Christian that has learned to love, truly sees no distinctions between people.

The apostles and the believers throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him and said, "You went into the house of uncircumcised men and ate with them." Starting from the beginning, Peter told them the whole story... When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, "So then, even to Gentiles God has granted repentance that leads to life." (Acts 11:1-4, 18)

There are many barriers visible and invisible that separate us from one another.

In Peter's day, one of them was the separation between Jews and everyone who wasn't a Jew (i.e. Gentiles).

Now Peter had just visited the home of Cornelius, who was a Roman Centurion and a Gentile. Peter had, through some Spirit-led prompting, become Cornelius' guest, an opportunity to practice Christian hospitality through receiving the experience set before him—eating and staying with Cornelius and his household for a few days. This was already a break in the barriers of Jewish kosher laws and established practices.

Through God's not-so-subtle prompting Peter also shared the Gospel with these Gentile folks from the nations, and God poured out His Spirit upon them, before Peter had even finished speaking. This was a sign to them all that the barrier between Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the Earth had been obliterated. This experience of God's work upended the church's theology.

Today, we are deeply hesitant and skeptical to allow experience to overturn our theology and practice or break down our barriers. Experience is subjective, after all—who can trust it? We much prefer objective facts and "clear" texts. Yet sometimes in doing so, we limit God's Sovereignty to our finite conceptions: pinning His wings to the cork like a biology project.

You can see that play out in this section of Acts 11. When the other apostles and believers hear that the Gentiles received the word of God—they're taken aback. The theology and practice of the barriers said that Jews did not associate with Gentiles and neither did their God. So they immediately pile criticism on Peter, using many of the same words used by the Pharisees to criticize Jesus for eating with sinners.

But then Peter again moves in Christian hospitality: he does not react defensively, but in humility, takes the criticism and hears their concerns. In turn, they humbly listen in to Peter's story of God's Sovereign work in the lives of these Gentiles gathered in Cornelius' home.

At the end, the other apostles and believers simply praised God. Together, with humility and hospitality, they discerned together through the objections raised to this experiential anomaly, and when they did, they found it truly to be an act of the Sovereign Lord! So they praised Him for it. Barriers had been broken and theology upended, but God was in it.

Many conflicts have raged in the church over the years. Some still continue today. And more conflict will surly come, especially as we navigate these choppy waters of COVID-19 and whatever "re-opening" a church building and navigating new ways of ministry and worship together may look like.

But what if, as we enter into these places of likely conflict where our barriers, theology, and practices are challenged, what if we enter into those conversations with a Christ-like humility, love, and hospitality—ready to hear and receive one another's experience, fears, and concerns? What if we enter in, assuming that the Sovereign Lord is already at work—in ways that we may not fully understand, but perhaps can, together and with the Spirit's help, discern our way through?

May God continue to open our eyes and ears and humble our hearts and minds to discern His Sovereign work among us today.

Love must be sincere…Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn (Romans 12:15).

One of the earliest pieces of advice I received about being a pastor was this, "There will be days when you do a funeral in the morning and a wedding in the afternoon. You will need to weep in the morning and rejoice in the afternoon. Your tears and your joy better be sincere." That advice comes directly from our text for today. Paul is continuing to lay out different ways in which the Christian community loves. Once again, we discover that love is not easy. It is not rooted in feelings but in a decision of the mind to behave in certain ways.

The dictionary defines empathy as "the ability to understand and share the feelings of another." We are often encouraged to develop sympathy which is the capacity to share in another's pain or sorrow. That's one side of empathy. But as Christians, we need to engage in the other side of empathy, namely, to rejoice when another rejoices. This, I think, is the more difficult side of empathy. Think about it. Paul calls us to rejoice with people who are rejoicing, even if we do not feel like it. Your loved one is dying of cancer and someone else's is healed. And you rejoice with them. That is what Paul is saying. It's a rare occasion where I have seen this on display.

We are equipped with a great capacity for giving and receiving love. Even the hardest heart melts before the innocent smile of a child or the antics of puppies and kittens. But this capacity for love, both sides of empathy, is often strangely locked up in the confines of selfishness. This may be because genuine, loving, empathetic involvement is debilitating and costly. To weep when you are more interested in having fun or to appreciate another's gain when you are suffering loss is hard, but necessary. Doing so helps us overcome our selfishness because it is an act of selflessness. It is sincere love.

The problem with this rejoicing is that someone else's success often arouses jealousy and envy in our hearts. Jealousy and envy, hatred and malice are our native bents. When we can truly rejoice with someone's success without envying them, we are demonstrating a transformed mind (12:2).

Not envying those that prosper, but rejoicing with them; being truly glad that others have the success and comfort which we do not; and not despising those that are in trouble, but being concerned for them, and ready to help them: this is to do as God does. He delights in the prosperity of his servants (Ps. 35:27) and is likewise distressed in their distress (Isa. 63:9).

Where there is a mutual love between the members of the church, there will be such empathy. True love will interest us in the sorrows and joys of one another, and teach us to make them our own.

But how do we get there? I think Philippians 4 holds a key, "I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength" (Phil. 4:12, 13).

When we learn to be content with out lot in life, because we trust God, then we can be an empathetic community.

"As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came on them as he had come on us at the beginning. Then I remembered what the Lord had said: 'John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.' So if God gave them the same gift he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could stand in God's way?"

God broke the rules.

Jews and Gentiles were to be separate from one another. The Jews were God's people. Anyone who wasn't a Jew—that is, the Gentiles—were not God's people. Simple as that. Jews weren't even to so much as enter the home of a Gentile for fear of being defiled.

This had religious moorings, of course in the Old Testament law. But you can find numerous ways that such separations and divisions are embedded in our society today. Borders separate us from others who speak a different language or keep a different cultural identity. Quebec and Ontario serve as an example.

Money separates us from others. Some can afford air conditioning. Some can't. Some can afford to get out of the city. Some can't. Some can afford to live on the Upper West end of town, far away from the smokestacks of industry with the prevailing winds at their back to keep the smell away. Some can't.

The colour of our skin can separate us. Our country of origin can separate us. Our gender can separate us. Our age can separate us. Our ability to walk, or to see, or to hear, or to speak the language well can separate us.

And, as the pandemic has progressed, it has revealed that very often these things do separate us. Even if we would've liked to believe that they didn't. Poorer communities have been hit harder. Communities where immigrants and people of colour live have been hit harder. Homes for the elderly have been hit harder.

There may not be walls to divide us. But there are invisible barriers erected in our society that still keep us separate.

Yet, as things open back up—if you stroll through the urban streets of Hamilton, you might just discover one of the many store front churches filled with folks who are separate from you in wealth, skin colour, immigration status, and more to whom God has nonetheless given "the same gift he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ:" the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Because God still breaks our rules today. He still breaks down our barriers and turns our arbitrary separations into Spirit-bound union in Christ.

And, if they've been given the same gift as us... well, who are we to think that we can stand in God's way by continuing to live out our arbitrary separations?

Love must be sincere… Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse (Romans 12:14).

We have been considering what sincere love looks like. The last few episodes of these Wilderness Wanderings have been about hospitality. Now, Paul ups the ante. Hospitality is nothing compared to what comes next. Love is no easy thing. It flies in the face of what appears to be basic human nature: anger and revenge. Let's start with a brief story about revenge.

On a Friday early in 1982, Kevin got drunk, got into his car and went for a drive. In the course of that drive, he killed an 18-year-old young lady. He was convicted of manslaughter and drunk driving. Since he was only 17, he served a court sentence and had to spend a year campaigning against drunk driving. The young lady's family sued him for $936, to be paid by $1 cheques each Friday, hand delivered to the family home.

Kevin had a hard time doing this. It haunted him. He couldn't sleep on Thursday. He kept missing his payments. He's offered postdated cheques, with an extra $52. But the family wouldn't accept. For 18 years they wanted to see him on their doorstep on Friday evenings. They wanted revenge. They wanted to curse him.

I know that this is not a story about Christians being persecuted. Its just a very real human revenge story that happens so often. Christians are called to do the exact opposite. How often have you seen Christians do that? There are examples. One of the more famous is the Amish community in Lancaster County which publicly forgave the man who killed their school children. Unfortunately, there are as many stories of Christians cursing their enemies.

When the Bible refers to cursing, it doesn't refer only to words; it refers to bad, often, really bad things happening to people. 'Blessing' and 'cursing' are opposites, wishing people good or ill, health or harm.

In our text we are told to bless those who persecute us. Persecution is not just about Christians being killed for their faith. It refers to Christians being denied benefits and freedom because their faith in Jesus Christ has been put into action. This may include such things as being denied the right to gather for worship; being ridiculed by friends for going to church; or being denied promotions in the work place.

Our response to all such things should be to bless our persecutors. Of course, Paul was echoing the teaching of Jesus, who told us to love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, bless those who curse us, pray for those who mistreat us (Luke 6:27-28). There is no better way to express our positive wishes for our enemies' welfare than to turn them into prayers and into actions.

Of all the qualities of love, this is undoubtedly the most difficult to carry out. The others may fall by the wayside because we are busy or tired or self-absorbed, but we typically don't resist them. Returning good for evil, on the other hand, goes against every natural instinct we possess — especially when the offender is a fellow Christian. Grace in response to sin is a quality unique to God, and this ability can only come from Him and be enabled by Him.

If we are to grow in the grace of blessing those who harm us, we will need to ask for help.