Me: Yes, they are and they do not realize how much hurt they are causing others.
Prodigal: May the Lord open their eyes.
Me: Maybe.
This is from the book Bold Love by Dr. Dan Allender & Dr. Tremper Longman III
Vengeance sought today shifts the offense from the one who committed the sin to the one who is handling the sin with even greater sin. The work of exposure, reflection, dialogue, and prayer is hindered and change made more difficult. How many believers are blinded to their own sin because of another’s inopportune pursuit of revenge? How many unbelievers have been given greater grounds to dismiss the gospel on the basis of petty, almost absurdly small, grudges held by one believer against another? When the gospel is hindered by illicit revenge, Satan smiles. It is a small but significant victory for the devouring lion. Our choice to seek or not withhold vengeance brings sorrow to our Father and, in turn, tears our hearts away from the joy of our reconciliation with Him.
James 4:11
Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but it thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge.
We shall see His lovely face some bright, golden morning,
When the clouds have rifted, and the shades have flown;
Sorrow will be turned to joy, heartaches gone forever;
No more night, only light, When we see His face.
Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself…
Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the Child of a peasant woman. He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty, and then for three years He was an itinerant preacher. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never owned a home. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never put His foot inside a big city. He never traveled two hundred miles from the place where He was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but Himself. He had nothing to do with this world except the naked power of His Divine manhood. While still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against Him. He was turned over to His enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a Cross between two thieves. His executioners gambled for the only piece of property He had on earth while He was dying–and that was His coat. When He was dead He was taken down and laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend. Such was His human life–He rises from the dead. Nineteen wide centuries have come and gone and today He is the Centerpiece of the human race and the Leader of the column of progress. I am within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has that One Solitary Life.
Prodigal: Well, they are finally, popping up after we planted them last year.
Me: Darn pretty too!
This is from the book A Spiritual Clinic by J. Oswald Sanders
The expression “work out” carries the idea of working out to an ultimate goal, to a finish, as in a scientific or mathematical problem. The question of the believer’s standing before God is never in view in the passage, nor is there room for the idea that our sanctification is something completed in a high moment of surrender to Christ. It is true that full surrender to Christ is necessary to full sanctification, but the crisis of surrender is only the initiation of the process. We have a life job on our hands. “Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after” (Phil. 3:12), Paul protested. Sanctification is not automatic, the result of mere fluxion of time. The free agency of man in cooperating with God is involved. God sends sun and rain, provides soil and seed, but there would no crop if the farmer did not plow and fertilize, sow and reap.
The rich man shall lie down, but he shall not be gathered: he openeth his eyes, and he is not. Job 27:19 (KJV)
O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive; O Lord, hearken and do; defer not, for thine own sake, O my God: for thy city and thy people are called by thy name. Daniel 9:19 (KJV)
The devil has so many tactics. What is true with Godly people is that they surrender all to the Lord. With that surrender the devil cannot come into to tempt. All is from God, all is for God and all we give to God.
Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for him: fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass. Psalms 37:7 (KJV)
