1 Peter 3:8-12

1 Peter 3:8-12    Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble. Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing. For, “Whoever would love life and see good days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from deceitful speech. He must turn from evil and do good; he must seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil” (NIV).

   I mentioned in the last piece how I use to babysit the two greatest kids in the world, a boy and a girl. When they were about three and five, one sunny afternoon we were in the backyard playing t-ball. They had this plastic stand on which we put a plastic baseball, and they would hit it with a plastic baseball bat to myself in the “outfield.” Once when the girl was up to bat, she swung the bat and smacked the ball. Rather than going straight, it went flying at an odd angle and hit the boy in the leg who was simply walking along the grass. It was such a fluke shot that she started laughing, and I chuckled. The boy did not think it was funny. That lad, who is the sweetest boy in the world, got mad, thinking his sister had been aiming at him, and he probably was hurt that we had been laughing at the event. When he got up to bat, he turned his body away from the main “outfield,” and was aiming straight for his sister. As she moved, he kept rotating his body, trying to position himself to hit his sister.

   I went to him, and turned him around so that he was facing the “outfield,” and I told him with sincerity, “Don’t try and hit your sister. It was an accident. She was not trying to hit you.” If she had hit him on purpose, we would have needed a serious time out, and there would have been a call for an apology, and forgiveness.

   When someone does something hurtful to me, my natural reaction is to get revenge. God totally changes my natural reaction. Verse 9 here is explaining the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 5:39, where there is the controversial verse: “If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also”(NIV). I have come to be convicted that Jesus is not a masochist. Rather Jesus was teaching for us not to carry out our natural tendency to get revenge. And in addition, Jesus even teaches that we need to forgive people who do evil which results in us getting hurt. This does not mean that we have to stay in a line of abuse. And we are still permitted to carry out actions which will cease further evil action. Each situation is different and calls for individual discernment.

   Yet Scripture contains the radical message that Christians must live a life that goes against the norms of society. Christianity is not an institution, rather it is a way of life. And that way of life includes becoming more like Jesus, who is good, thus it is a way of life embracing goodness, not evil. Lying, swearing, stealing, malice, deceit; these are all actions that are rampant in our culture, and even backed up with excuses to justify the implantation. Yet they are evil. We followers of Jesus must rely one hundred percent on God to be enabled to be changed so that we do that which is good, which includes our mode of forgiving people; the call of a child of God.

   Also, as others continue to go about doing wrong, we can rest assured, as verse 12 teaches, that God is going to hold people accountable, sooner or later, for the wrong they have done, such as lying, swearing, stealing, malice, and deceit. God is the ultimate judge, and may we followers of Jesus trust His judgment, the same One who has given every person the opportunity to be saved and changed by the atonement Jesus made on the Cross.
Hunter Irvine