This post is Day 29 in a series of studies about “A Living Sacrifice”. I strongly suggest you begin with the introduction to this study, please click here to read it.

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A Living Sacrifice – Day 29

Maybe hate is too strong a word for many of us today. But all of us will be aware of people who we would not choose to be friends with, who we would not invite for dinner, who rub us the wrong way, whose ideas are totally opposite to ours.

Romans 12:20

On the contrary: If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.

The Thought

Remember that this month we are trying to become better “Living Sacrifices”! This challenging verse tells us how to do it! It goes one step further than yesterday’s verse which told us that we are not to take revenge. We learned yesterday that we have to leave things to God. Here we read that we must be kind to those who hate us. That is usually a hard thing to do.

Maybe “hate” is too strong a word for many of us today. But all of us will be aware of people who we wouldn’t choose to be friends with. Those who we wouldn’t invite for dinner at home, people who “rub us the wrong way”, or whose ideas are totally opposite to ours.

An Old Testament example of this is given in 2 Chronicles 28. We need to remember that after the reign of King Solomon, the Jewish people had been divided into 2 kingdoms: Israel and Judah.

After one of the battles between these two kingdoms, Israel was rejoicing and taking home many captives as slaves. They were stopped by a prophet Oded who told them that Judah had lost the battle because for too long they had been worshipping idols. Oded went on to say that Israel too had turned to idol worship. Now Jehovah was asking them to return to Him. They must care for these captives and send them home with food and clothing. Some of the elders of Israel were moved by the prophet’s words and the result was that the captives were fed and clothed and taken back to Judah.

Action

Ask yourself today what this verse from Romans means in our time and our place. How can you react to it?

Pray for a generous heart and that you can see situations you are involved in from The Lord’s point of view.