THINK TOGETHER.
What do you do when someone is mean to you?
READ TOGETHER
Proverbs 20:22. Do not say, “I will repay evil”; wait for the Lord, and he will deliver you.
What do you do when someone is mean to you? Our natural reaction is to repay evil. Say something mean back. Take back what they took. Tell a lie about them. Hit back. But wisdom says to not repay evil with evil.
Think about it, if your goal is to get the other person to stop being mean, stop hitting, stop lying, etc. will repaying their evil make them stop, or will it just keep the bad reactions going, and going, and going? That’s right, returning evil for evil never stops evil. That’s why the Apostle Paul says the same thing as Solomon:
Romans 12:21. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
How can we resist the urge to get even and instead do good to our enemies? Solomon says we can trust that God will deliver us. Paul would say that we can trust that God has already delivered us through Jesus. Jesus promises to love us, and save us, and take us to Heaven to live with him. So, if all of that is true, if I already have everything that is good, then why do I need to pay back evil? I don’t. And you don’t.
This doesn’t mean that we can’t ask people to stop being mean to us, or get help when others are picking on us or hurting us. But it does mean that we don’t have to get angry and want revenge. We can love and forgive others and still want them to stop being mean. But that’s the job of the Lord – he will deliver you. How? Maybe through the help of the adults that care about you, or through your own kindness, or through the peace he puts inside your heart, or maybe deliverance won’t come until Heaven, but whatever way God delivers you, you will be delivered from all evil. Just like Jesus rising from the dead, you can be sure of your salvation from everything bad and harmful.
Because of Jesus we know that we will be delivered from evil.
With Jesus we don’t have to get revenge or repay evil with evil.
DO SOMETHING TOGETHER
Make Romans 12:21 a family memory verse.
PRAY TOGETHER
Jesus, God delivered you from evil and he will deliver me. Help me to trust this so much that I don’t have to pay back the mean things that are done to me. Amen.
TLICfamily 