Continuity of Chapter 13: Consequences: A true worshiper of God is one who has his heart regularly filled with the love of God. Remember that in the scriptures we are told that God will not forgive those who do not forgive others their trespasses; and they will surely be delivered to the torturers until they pay all their dues (Mark 11:26; Matthew 18:34, 35). It is actually an act of foolishness for someone to choose to suffer because of unforgiveness when Jesus had already paid for our forgiveness.
Questions We Must Answer
- Why are we more eager to perform church obligations in the bid to serve God than in developing our personal relationships with God and with our fellow brethren?
- Why do we fight to protect material things more than protecting the values of relationships?
- Would you actually succeed to choose another person from a different parent/family as your own brother or sister and shun/renounce your own brother/sister from the same parent(s), just because he or she offended you?
- Would you change your surname because your junior of senior brother offended you?
- Haven’t we realized yet that we are actually created and customized for relationships? (Matthew 22:37-40).
Two-fold Relationship
Our relationships are two-fold, God first and then man. Our highest priority is placed on God first, because He alone remains the only source of love. Our relationship with Him equips us in a richer way to know how to love and forgive our neighbor. Meanwhile it is our relationship with God that certainly helps us to have good relationship with our brothers and sisters of God’s household.
There are three main areas in which God will never allow us to make our choices:
- Choosing our parents;
- Choosing where we are to be born, and
- Choosing who to be our brothers and sisters in the family.
More so, as born again Christians, God never gives us the occasion to choose who should be our brothers and sisters in Christ whether they are backslidden or not; although in spiritual birth, every human on reaching the age of accountability has the choice of choosing either God or the devil as his/her father.
The two words Jesus thought us to say in learning how to pray with the “The Lord’s Prayer,” are, “OUR FATHER’
“Our Father’ simply means”:
- We have one common Father (God)
- We have relationship with this heavenly Father, and
- We have relationship with each other.
Though the word, ‘father’ generally means an originator one who is highly respected as a leader, irrespective of whether he’s good or bad. The Word “Father” as referred by Christ depicts God as the creator of all visible and including the invisible things; but He is not the Father of all in the relationship of character.
Jesus once told the Jews,
“Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word.
44. You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.” (John 8:43, 44)
The nature of sin remains in us as our character until we become born again. At the new birth, God’s nature becomes the basis for our character and this is highly possible because of His Spirit which now lives within us. He who does not have the Spirit of Christ is none of His. So, if you have accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior, you have simply chosen God as your Father and therefore have others (who have done same) as your
brothers and sisters. In getting born again by the incorruptible Word of God, God enables us to be like Him and this is reflected in the fruit of the Holy Spirit in our lives as seen in Galatians 5:22-23. Temperance (or as some other translations render it as self-control), is one attitudinal fruit that can tremendously help us to gain control over anger.
Incident #23: Be Careful Hurting A Child Of God
Let me recall an incident a man of God, Derek Prince (late) related in one of his messages when talking about handling anger: Many years he was a principal of a school in one of the countries in Africa and a woman brought her child from a faraway village for enrolment at the time when admission was closed. So he told the woman that there was no vacant position because the classes had been filled to their maximum capacities. The woman insistently begged for her child to be registered against all explanations. As this continued, this man of God started getting irritated, and as he was about to lash out in anger towards the woman, he heard God speak to him these words; “Be careful she’s a child of God”.
When I heard this many years back, and for the first time it really got me jolted, and since then I have cautiously applied this in my heart in relating or dealing with people whom I don’t know, because you never can tell who might be God’s child amongst them. God won’t take it lightly if you hurt anyone made in his own image even if that person is an unbeliever. He takes it even a much more grievous offence when you hurt His own covenant child.
Remember, He had said,
“Assuredly, I say to you, in as much as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.” (Matthew 25:40 KJV).
So please be careful what you do to a child of God. I sincerely believe that as believers, we are obligated to live out the New Testament life patterned after Christ. God is so much concerned about how we relate to one another as part of the “Household of God” (Gal. 6:10) and members of the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:12). We need one another and greatly depend on each other for maximum benefit. (See Psalm 133)
I strongly understand that in order for us to put a check on ourselves as Christians, Jesus told us not to curse anyone that curses, hurts or despitefully use us. (Matthew 5:43-48). He sure knows that it is pretty easy for us as humans to take those who abuse, use, and hurt us as our enemies. Retaliation, simply put, is an act of revenge conveyed through anger and not love. Giving love in the place of hatred or hurt done against us is judgment in itself for that person’s self-realization or destruction.
“Beloved, do not avenge yourselves ….Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord.” Therefore “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; If he is thirsty, give him drink; For in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head.”(Romans 12:19-20)
The twenty first verse of this passage is summarily striking, and it says, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
The revelation in this is that we should all concentrate on doing good like Jesus did while He was physically on earth. He was anointed with the Holy Spirit and He went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed by the devil. (Acts 10:38). The world is tired of believers who are anointed, speak in tongues and still do evil.
