Romans 12:17-21

To understand we are gifted by God to be of use to our Lord in His Body is a wonderful subject.  Perhaps we readily yield ourselves as living sacrifices with the thought of being useful in God’s plan for this age.  Let us be just as ready to yield ourselves to Christ in the area of how we treat those who mistreat us.  Today’s passage provides tremendously important perspective on what is often the most difficult “love command” of Christ, to love our enemy!

Consider the five priorities we are to have in our difficult relationships.  Likely there will be some renewing of the mind as this is not the way we were taught to think before coming to Christ.  Our fleshly priorities are repayment, retaliation and revenge.  But not so with Christ!

v The priority of morality, v17.  Rather than repaying in like kind (evil for evil) our “first thought” (NKJV have regard for) and thus our occupying thought is to do what is inherently good or moral.  Our actions are not dictated by the actions of others but by the will of God.

v The priority of peace, v18.  God values peace highly (1 Cor. 7:15; Rom. 14:19; Matt. 5:9; James 3:17-18).  God calls us, as much as possible, to be at peace with those around us.  The implication is that we will be ones to forgive and to bear the burden of insult or contempt, as did our Lord (1 Peter 2:23a).

v The priority of patience, v19.  Revenge assumes a right we don’t have.  Vengeance belongs to God (Deut. 32:35; Heb. 10:30).  He alone is Judge; He alone sees things perfectly.  So when unjustly treated we are called upon to wait patiently for God to bring about justice.  As did our Lord (1 Pet. 2:23b).

v The priority of love, v20.  Jesus made this clear in His teaching (Matt. 5:43-48) as well as in His example (Rom. 5:8).  Love is not easily offended, hardly noticing when others do it wrong (1 Cor. 13:4-5).  But further, love seeks to meet a need in the enemy’s life.  The mistreatment is an indication that there is something lacking.  So it seeks to meet the need, feeding him if he is hungry and giving him a drink if he is thirsty.  The result may be that the love will soften his heart or that his guilty conscience will burn hotter so that he might be changed.

v The priority of goodness, v21.  The good in v17 was the concept of goodness so to speak, “inherent moral good.”  The good in v21 refers to beneficial acts.  Rather than allowing evil to dictate our feelings and actions we overcome the evil by doing good things for the very one that does us wrong.

May we be renewed in our minds about this.  Remember that transformation means we will be living a life according to the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.  That is the will of God we just studied, and which we saw perfectly in Christ.  Now let us present our bodies to Him that we might truly follow Him!