Writing this blog today feels like a huge weight sitting on my chest. The weight of a hard topic and the burning desire to offer hope to a hurting world. The responsibility to do it well, to represent God’s word accurately, is completely overwhelming me right now.
Because I feel so passionately about this I am just going to state what I believe and share the supporting verses afterwards. Our God is a just and powerful God. Victorious in all circumstances. Evil may appear to win for the moment. But Satan was already defeated on the cross when Jesus died for our sins and rose again from the dead. God is the final judge who decides who spends eternity in heaven and who spends eternity in hell.
Psalm 89:14 says, “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; steadfast love and truth go before you.” This means righteousness and justice are the firm basis on which God is immovably fixed. It is not only that God is a just God but that he is justice itself.
If the average man lives to be 80, it is a drop in the bucket to the eternal timeline of our souls. Looking at today’s headlines it might appear that evil is winning or that evil people are going unpunished. Looking through God’s Word we know that is simply not true. Those feelings . . . that belief . . . is just another ploy of Satan as the great deceiver to keep us feeling defeated and discouraged.
Unrepentant crime of every stripe and color does not go unpunished in God’s economy. Sometimes we are given the gift of God’s justice carried out swiftly here on earth. But sometimes – often times – it seems we must trust in an unseen God to make it right in the end.
2 Corinthians 5:10 says, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.” All of us will one day stand before God and be held responsible for the actions we took and the choices we made while on earth. The heavens declare his righteousness, for God himself is judge (Psalm 50:6).
Romans 12:19-21 tells us: Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. This is a comforting truth to someone who has been deeply hurt by someone else’s sin. I wish I could stop at verse 19 because the next part of this passage seems impossible in our human weakness.
Verse 20 - On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Certainly not something we can do in our own power out of our own hurt. However, Luke 1:37 tells us nothing is impossible with God.
And finally, in verse 21, the passage concludes with “Do not be overcome by evil. But overcome evil with good.” We have a choice. To live victorious through the power of a righteous, just and almighty God or live defeated by the schemes, plots and deceptions of Satan. Which will you choose today and in the days to come?