OVERCOMING EVIL

We are challenged by the Word of God to take a path that is foreign to our understanding of just recompense ...

But I say to you, 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, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. Matthew 5:44-45

If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Romans 12:20-21

When confronted by an enemy, we are to surrender our 'rights' and yield fully to the Holy Spirit's authority. Do not pray for God's 'help' in that situation, for that implies we have some intrinsic power of our own. We do not possess in our fallen nature the strength (nor the will) to overcome evil with good. But when we allow the love of Christ to flow unabated through our heart and mind and soul and spirit, it acts upon the soul of our adversary and brings glory to the Father. 

Stedman - I was reading one day a story about a boy who was in the army. He was a Christian and had formed the habit of praying beside his bed before he went to sleep. He kept up this practice in the army, but he became an object of mockery and ridicule to the entire barracks. One night he knelt to pray after a long, weary march. As he was praying, one of his tormentors took off his muddy boots and threw them at the boy, one at a time, hitting him on each side of his head. The Christian said nothing about it, and just took the boots and put them beside the bed, and continued to pray. But the next morning, when the other man woke up, he found his boots sitting beside his bed, all shined and polished. It so broke his heart that he came to that boy and asked him for forgiveness. That led, after a time, to that man becoming a Christian.

Remember that our own evil is more detrimental to us than the evil done to us by others. In the world it seems right to recompense evil for evil ... may God rescue us from applying that sort of justice upon our enemy.