Hatred vs. Forgiveness
As I was reading the other day, it struck me how much time King Saul spent hunting down a perceived enemy who was really not his enemy at all. Instead of sticking with his real battles, he wasted time conjuring them. Once while he was away pursuing David, he received word that Israel was being attacked. Oh, how his enemies must have had a lot of fun at his expense. It wasn’t hard to defeat Saul because he was never prepared for a real attack. He was so blinded by hatred that David could have killed him numerous times if he wanted to. By the time Saul realized that he’d been foolish, he had already wasted much of his life and David’s. How much they could have accomplished if they had worked together!
Hatred is a killer and, more often than not, it kills you more than the person you hate. When Jesus taught His disciples, His instructions were to “love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). Not the advice you would hear today, is it. But that’s still Christ’s call today. We are to imitate Christ, not the world.
It’s not easy to love those who are unkind but, with Christ’s help, we can do so. With His help, we can pray for them with a heart that truly wants to see them prosper and know the love of Christ. Vengeance is God’s, and He will repay it but we have the power to intercede for those who have wronged us. They may not realize the depth of their crime but God can bring them to repentance and that’s what we should pray for. We also need to pray that, when repentance comes, we will be ready to forgive. When you get to that place, you can walk in the joy of your salvation with a clean heart. There’s not much more freedom than that!
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