Persecuted
and hated through no fault of his own, David had found himself a fugitive. King
Saul, a man he had supported, defended and blessed by his ministry and skill,
on his heels and after his life! We too may experience attacks and deliberate
injustices acted against us. There are times when we may uncover in our hearts
a desire for revenge, against those, who without just cause, turn on us or determine
to become our enemies. While we may try to defend our ‘feelings’ and minimise
the true motives which fuel them, such a condition of heart, is not appropriate
in a believer. The greatest injustice which was ever perpetrated by human beings,
was the false accusation and crucifixion of Jesus Christ! Unlike any of us who
though innocent in some respects are nevertheless sinners, there was no sin or
fault to be found in Jesus. He lived the perfect and sinless human life and
died, not because He deserved death, but because we did! In His great love He
died in our place and paid the price of sin He did not owe, for us who owed the
price of sin we could not pay! No other human injustice ever before or since
equates in severity and guilt, to what took place that day at Calvary! Jesus
could have commandeered an immense host of angels, who at His mere nod would have destroyed
every enemy and persecutor! He could have avenged Himself of their abuse, beating,
mocking and cruel torture. Yet He did not! Instead, He even stopped the hand of
his disciple which had been stretched forth to strike a blow at the Lord’s
enemy! He had the opportunity, the power and the means to take revenge against
the injustice, yet in His love Jesus prayed for you and me, along with the
physical persecutors of His day saying “Father forgive them”! He chose to do the
righteousness of the Father, to fulfil His will and die for those who were His
enemies! In light of Christ’s example, any thought of personal revenge or
retaliation for any hurts or offenses made against us, should simply vanish and
be vanquished from our hearts! If we are
honest however, we will see that often we waste no time in ‘paying-back’ for
those things which we perceive have been done against us. If an opportunity
presents itself to us, where we can inflict an injury, ‘bite back’, or give
them a bit of ‘their own medicine’, we might be tempted to take it with glee. David
found himself in just such a situation with the man who unjustly tried to kill
him and continued to pursue him for his life. He found himself presented with
the opportunity to finally end his torment, and cease from being a fugitive from
family and country. He could have reasoned that God had delivered his
arch-enemy into his hand and with the support of probably every human being
around him, put an end to Saul and his threats! His own men encouraged him to
do exactly that, in fact, they volunteered to do it for him! Let’s not forget
also that by time David also knew he had been anointed to be the next king. A
lesser man, a man who walked in the desires of his own flesh and not sensitive
to God and His Spirit, would have caved at the temptation and justified his
actions. After all, as the next anointed king, eliminating his enemy could have
been seen as defensible by the people, but not David. A man after God’s heart,
he reasoned spiritually, acted correctly, did the righteousness of God and gave
no place to his pride or hurt. He wanted what was acceptable to God not man! He
would not stretch forth his hand against the man whom God had set up as king,
even if clearly this man has lost favour with God and was floundering in every
way. David did not take things into his own hands but relied on the Lord to be
his strength, his Defender and Avenger. He would be king, but only at the time,
and in the way that God would bring it about! Do we have the courage,
confidence and constancy of character to stand as David did, in the face of fleshly
opportunities to take our revenge? Can we really justify any thought of
avenging the hurts and injuries done to us, in the light of Christ’s example?
http://www.pentecostalfamilychurch.com.au/devotion
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