Overcome evil with good—how does that work out?

 

Overcome evil with good—how does that work out?

 

Romans 12:21 (KJV)
Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.

Paul gives us a command, likely taken from the Sermon on the Mount where our Lord tells us to turn the other cheek. Evil should not overcome us; rather we should consistently work to overcome evil with good.

But is that not what Christ did? Exactly! And how did that work out? It leads directly to the cross—giving a new impetus to the command, “Take up your cross and follow me”.  We are to exactly follow Christ—to become “little” Christs.

Much is made by our Christian leaders in coming up with special formulas to successful evangelism. If you just do this, or you just do that, you will find phenomenal success under "my" plan, proclaims the latest evangelist. (I wrote a column on this, The Magic Evangelical Formula.). It is necessary to add this point. We are called to turn the cheek and to carry the cross.

I am reading a book by Joel Rosenberg titled The Auschwitz Escape, where one of his major subthemes is Christians who are busy carrying the cross—even while taken captive by the Germans. I am a very rapid reader, but find myself slowing down immensely, awed by all the evil gathered and focused against Jews and the Christians who would help them.

But that is exactly the Christian we are called to be. Like Christ, we are to face our problems down, and keep looking up towards him, just as he looked toward the Father when he faced the cross. But we in the United States know almost nothing of direct persecution. Instead our persecution is of a dark sort, gloomy and constant, pulling us subtly away from the closeness we are to have with God. It works best over time, gradually pulling us away from our Redeemer, pulling our eyes ever away from our Savior, putting our focus on anything but our God.

How does that work? Our country is about as far away from Christianity than it ever has been. But what is even more alarming is that we look at Christians and they are so far away from their Christ, they no longer see him. Replacing him with their latest lusts, and remaking him to be more what they desire rather than facing him for who he is. They are becoming deceived and distort and disturb the very Christ that is presented to us in the Scriptures. We are seeing pockets of Christian heresy rapidly grow here and there. Jesus did point to the question in his time: When the Son of Man returns, will he find faith on the earth? Apparently, in the US not so much.

Let nothing separate us from our eternal God, who has manifested himself in his Son, giving himself so that we might not only have life but have it abundantly. Have you been walking in the abundant life?  It is like no other life, and nothing we seek anywhere else will fill the empty spot in our souls that only Christ can fill.  Life in Him is life indeed!