Friday, January 17, 2025

What should we do?

Let my accusers be clothed with shame and let them cover themselves with their own disgrace as with a mantle. ~ Psalms 109:29

In this Psalm of David, he prayed for his accuser, but not in a good way.  His plea is raw, listing out his deep hurt and desire for justice. However, when we compare Davids’s prayer with the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament, where we are called to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44), it can create tension in our hearts.

I, too, have struggled with contrasts in scriptures like this. When I’ve faced betrayal or been wronged, my first instinct wasn’t always to pray for my enemy’s salvation. Yet, by going to God in prayer, I found out that holding onto anger only fuels bitterness and takes me further from God’s peace.

It helps to remember that Psalm 109 reflects David’s humanity and a real cry from a wounded heart. God doesn’t ask us to suppress our pain or deny our hurt. Instead, He lets us bring it to Him honestly. But as followers of Christ Jesus, we are also called to go beyond our natural inclinations and extend grace, just as God has extended grace to us and forgave all our offenses

When we’re wronged, we have two paths before us: to seek vengeance or to seek God’s redemptive power. While David’s prayer in Psalm 109 reflects his longing for justice, we know from Jesus’ teachings that God’s ultimate victory is in transforming lives and bringing sinners to salvation.

Consider this: When someone wrongs you, it often stems from their own separation from God. Their actions reflect the brokenness of sin. That is when you have an opportunity for God’s light to shine through you. Forgiveness and kindness not only release you from the prison of resentment but also creates a powerful testimony of God’s love to the other person.

Here are some steps you can take to put yourself on the path to God’s peace and show His love when you have been wronged or hurt.

1. Be Honest with God: Like David, bring your pain and frustration to God in prayer. Acknowledge your hurt but ask for His perspective and guidance.
2. Pray for Your Enemies: Instead of focusing on their destruction, pray for their salvation. Ask God to open their hearts to His love and truth.
3. Extend Forgiveness: Forgiveness isn’t about excusing their behavior but about freeing yourself from the burden of bitterness. Trust God to handle justice in His way and time.
4. Respond with Kindness: Let your actions reflect God’s grace. A kind response to an enemy can plant seeds of conviction and transformation in their heart.

Today I want to encourage you to remember that it’s natural to feel anger and hurt when wronged, but Jesus calls us to rise above our emotions and show His love and mercy. True victory isn’t in seeing your enemies fall but in seeing them come to know the grace of God. When you choose forgiveness, prayer, and kindness, you bring your heart into agreement with God’s purpose and plan. Let this truth encourage you today: through your love and forgiveness, God can turn even the hardest hearts toward Him, bringing beauty from ashes and triumph from pain.

Bottom of Form

Today’s scripture reading: Psalms 109

1 Do not keep silent, O God of my praise!

2 For the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful have opened against me; They have spoken against me with a lying tongue.

3 They have also surrounded me with words of hatred, and fought against me without a cause.

4 In return for my love they are my accusers, But I give myself to prayer.

5 Thus they have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my love.

6 Set a wicked man over him, and let an accuser stand at his right hand.

7 When he is judged, let him be found guilty, and let his prayer become sin.

8 Let his days be few, and let another take his office.

9 Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.

10 Let his children continually be vagabonds, and beg; Let them seek their bread also from their desolate places.

11 Let the creditor seize all that he has, and let strangers plunder his labor.

12 Let there be none to extend mercy to him, Nor let there be any to favor his fatherless children.

13 Let his posterity be cut off, and in the generation following let their name be blotted out.

14 Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the Lord, and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out.

15 Let them be continually before the Lord, that He may cut off the memory of them from the earth;

16 Because he did not remember to show mercy, but persecuted the poor and needy man, that he might even slay the broken in heart.

17 As he loved cursing, so let it come to him; As he did not delight in blessing, so let it be far from him.

18 As he clothed himself with cursing as with his garment, so let it enter his body like water, and like oil into his bones.

19 Let it be to him like the garment which covers him, and for a belt with which he girds himself continually.

20 Let this be the Lord’s reward to my accusers, and to those who speak evil against my person.

21 But You, O God the Lord, deal with me for Your name’s sake; Because Your mercy is good, deliver me.

22 For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me.

23 I am gone like a shadow when it lengthens; I am shaken off like a locust.

24 My knees are weak through fasting, and my flesh is feeble from lack of fatness.

25 I also have become a reproach to them; When they look at me, they shake their heads.

26 Help me, O Lord my God! Oh, save me according to Your mercy,

27 That they may know that this is Your hand—That You, Lord, have done it!

28 Let them curse, but You bless; When they arise, let them be ashamed, but let Your servant rejoice.

29 Let my accusers be clothed with shame, and let them cover themselves with their own disgrace as with a mantle.

30 I will greatly praise the Lord with my mouth; Yes, I will praise Him among the multitude.

31 For He shall stand at the right hand of the poor, to save him from those who condemn him.