by Tad Lindley
Have you ever been hurt by someone until it is hard to sleep at night without thinking about them? They ripped you off, or lied about you. Maybe they bullied you or humiliated you on Facebook, and you lay there night after night thinking about how you should have really put them in their place right then and there. Can I get more real? You think how you wish you could have been laying there with a knife or a gun when your abuser came after you in the dark. These are mental videos that we play over and over in our minds. We have a hit list of people that we wish were either dead or suffering because of what they did to us.
David’s hit list
Even the godly king, David, had a hit list (I Kings 2:1-9). The King was nearing the end of his life, and he had a talk with his son, Solomon. David had selected Solomon to be the next king, and there were a couple of guys that David wanted killed:
1. Joab- Joab had been a general in David’s army. Joab had killed David’s son Absalom, which sounds terrible until you know that Absalom was chasing David in order to kill him. And so David told Solomon (paraphrasing here), “I want Joab to die an unpleasant death.” Joab was crossed off the hit list, only one more name to go.
2. Shimei- At the time that David was fleeing from his son, Absalom, who was trying to kill him, Shimei approached David and his soldiers and began to curse David and throw rocks at him. King David told Solomon, “Make sure he dies a bloody death.”
The fate of the names on the hit list
Joab sealed his own fate, and ended up dead because of his own treachery. Solomon gave great mercy to Shimei. Solomon changed Shimei’s death sentence to life on probation. Unfortunately for him, Shimei violated the conditions of his release and ended up dead because of his own choices. You can get all the details in I Kings 2:28-46.
Jesus’ hit list
The Bible says, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay,” saith the Lord. (Romans 12:19) Getting revenge is not our job. It is Jesus’ job. We want to be out front, punching the guilty in the throat, seeing them in handcuffs, seeing their name in the paper, but Jesus is pretty straightforward about it. He wants us to get out of the way. He is the expert.
Expert hit man
Have you ever been doing a job, and you needed it done fast, and you had a clumsy person wanting to help? Perhaps it was a child who thought they could help you pick fish, but this was not the time for them to pick fish, and so you told them, just sit back there and run the motor for me. Jesus is the expert and we are the child.
Here’s how we can help Jesus get revenge
In Romans 12:19, Jesus tells us, “Get off the way, this is a job for me. If you want to help, here is what you can do to help while I get vengeance”:
1. Love your enemies
2. Bless them that curse you
3. Do good to them that hate you
4. Pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you
Sound familiar? It is from Matthew 5:44, word for word.
But Bro. Lindley you don’t what they did to me…
This isn’t good self-help talk from Bro. Lindley, this is the word of God. He does not need our suggestions or our interference. He needs us to love, bless, do good, and pray while he works it out for the other person. Even if you do get to punch them in the throat, or see them suffer worse than you and your family members did, you will never be satisfied. There is only one way to get people off of your hit list (four ways actually). But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you. (Matthew 5:44) If you can do these four things, even though you might not mean it, eventually, you will be set free from the victimhood of your past. And it may take months or years, but these are the actual directions from the very mouth of God.
Bro. Lindley’s misery back guarantee
Try it. If it doesn’t work, you can always go back to tossing and turning the night away running over your hit list and your plans for revenge.
Reverend Tad Lindley is a minister at the United Pentecostal Church in Bethel, Alaska.
