Romans 12:14, “Bless those who persecute you. Don’t curse them; pray that God will bless them.” The Greek word translated into persecute was dioko which actually means to aggressively chase. Is anyone after you right now? They’re chasing after you for your money, for your position, for your reputation. Heck, maybe you don’t even know why they’re chasing after you. Maybe you’re in a lawsuit right now. Maybe you’re being attacked or talked about.
How do you handle that?
Well, according to God’s word, you do the opposite of what you want to do. What you want to do is talk about them. You want to tell everyone your side of the story. You want to be vindicated. You want the world to turn against them and stand behind you. But Paul says here, “Don’t curse them.” Paul’s not talking about putting a hex on someone, he’s talking about your ill wishes for them. The way you talk about them. Don’t curse them with your words. Don’t spew negativity about them. Stop trying to rally the troops so everyone else is against them. No, no, no – isn’t that what they have done to you?
Paul also says later in Romans 12, verse 17, “Never repay evil with more evil.” It’s wrong of them to talk about you, and it would be wrong of you to talk about them. Don’t do it. Just stop it.
It’s crazy how hard it is to control that, though isn’t it? There are certain stories of how incredibly wrong people have been to me that are almost fun to tell. It makes the other person look so totally absurd and it makes me feel good after what they tried to do to me. No, no, no, Pamela – God is not impressed. Stop it! I’m acting no better than them when I’m retelling the story to make them look bad.
Instead, here’s what we’re supposed to do: Pray that God will bless them. Woah, now that’s over the top! That’s a radical shift. Could you even do that?
For the sake of helping us all relate, let’s give this person a name. The person who is wrong, the person who is aggressively chasing you, trying to take something from you, the person who is talking about you and attacking you, the person making your life hard, let’s say their name is “Fool.” The bible often uses the term ‘Fool’ to refer to someone who is being ridiculous, so that’s the name we will give them today. They are your ‘Fool’.
Imagine for a moment instead of retelling the stories of how wrong Fool has been, how mean Fool has been, how Fool makes you feel so angry and so hurt, that instead, you start praying that God would bless and help Fool.
If you’re dealing with a real ‘Fool’ in your life, you may have felt your whole body just pull back in resistance. The more you felt that, the more attached you are to that negative feeling of fighting against ‘Fool’, and really the more hold they have over your life. YOU DON’T WANT THAT! God doesn’t want that. You need this!
So, right now, let’s just start. Again, I’m going to insert the name ‘Fool’, but you know who your persecutor is. You know who is making your life hard. You know who is talking about you. You know who makes you feel this way. Right now, let’s pray for them.
Lord, in obedience to your word, we want to stop the cycle of hurt and evil. We no longer want to be part of the continual talk and attacks. God, we don’t want to fight back. Father, bless my ‘Fool’. Bless the one who has hurt me. Bless the one who talks about me. Bless the one who has been ugly to me. Bless the one who has been unfair. Pull them in to you, cover them with your grace, heal what is hurting in them, restore them to your beautiful design and set their feet on your intended path. Today,