Hot Topic 3
HOT TOPIC PT 3 – What The Big Picture Reveals
Consider this:
If you have siblings, no doubt over the years of growing up your sibling did something that angered you.
Did you take a sword and kill them?
What if the sibling took something from you that was not theirs to take, would you take a sword and kill them?
You might have gotten into fights with your sibling.
Did you take a gun and shoot them?
What was your response to your sibling?
When we recognized a relationship even though at times it carries with it a great annoyance, there is still a part of us that love regardless, even if we don’t like the individual at the moment.
Not every family has children that have siblings. I grew up as an only child, but I did have my cousins and friends to play with. So, let’s look at this from a different vantage point. Let’s widen this out and now say, cousins.
ZOOM OUT
Cousins can get on the nerves of one another. Cousins fight. But let someone come up against a family member and the cousins will all come together to fight for one another instead of against one another. Let’s spread out more to include friends that we view as being family because the Bible does say that a friend is closer than a brother.
Read Proverbs 18:24
Let’s not stop here. Let’s spread out more to include friends of the family and more to include friends of friends until we get to today.
We are all related one to another. We are cousins who are several times removed. But we don’t recognize and acknowledge one another so we feel no real familial love toward one another.
But what about the agape’ love that Jesus said that HIS disciples would be known by?
Read John 13:35
In John 3:16, we are told that God “so loved the world…”
Shouldn’t we love as God loved?
There are so many Bible Verses that lets us know that vengeance belongs to the Lord, so much so that it would have been robbery to list one or two. So here is a link to all of them: Click below
“Vengeance Is MINE,” says the LORD.
God’s Word says that HE is our avenger.
- If we believe that to be true, then it would not be God’s will for us to take matters into our own hands. God’s Word says that He created the noble and the ignoble and that He created the evil one for the evil day. So even the wicked have a purpose, just like Judas was known by Jesus when he was called. He was called according to God’s purpose.
Read Proverbs 16:4
Read Job 21:30
Read Romans 9:22-26
- If we believe God’s Word to be true, then taking matters into our own hands would be our stepping out of the will of God ourselves. That would put us in trouble with God just King ASA got in trouble and the 11 tribes of Israel had to be corrected first. Their attitude, catch this now, toward their brother, was wrong.
God’s Word does not contradict itself.
So why would Jesus teach that if someone slaps your cheek turn the other cheek to them too, only to later tell them to NOW take up a sword?
Jesus was not telling his disciples to now defend themselves. Instead, what the Holy Spirit has shown me most recently is that Jesus was really teaching them what things are like when a person is out of the will of God. Herein lies the receipt of the sale that was requested at the onset of this HOT TOPIC discussion.
Please Proceed to Module 9, Hot Topic 4
Are you enjoying this study? Please share your comments on this lesson.