Overcoming Evil With Good!
Romans 12:21 “Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.”
Today, I feel a “Let me be real with you” session coming on. Make no mistake that I am a Christian, but sometimes I just want to “smack the taste right out of someone’s mouth.” Maybe you have been there, too—a place where you get so angry, you would hurt them if you could. But the truth is you know you can’t do that.
No one is perfect and we all have those moments when we could act up and act out. But instead, we are given a higher road to take. Does the high road hurt sometimes? Absolutely. It would probably “feel” good to get loose and fly off with your emotions, but that’s not the way God desires for us to operate—simply because feelings are deceiving.
Your feelings tell you to do one thing to feel better, and then you do it and feel worse! Why is that? If “Mr. Feelings” tells you to hurt someone to feel better and you feel worse afterwards, it sounds like “Mr. Feelings” doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Yet on the flip side, God’s word will tell you, “Instead of being overcome with evil, overcome evil with good.” Instead of striking back, stay on your knees and pray for them. Instead of attempting to make them look bad, try to help them look good. Does it work? Sure it does! Does it feel good? Not all the time, especially at the time you are overcoming evil with good.
Here’s a quick testimony on the subject: At one job, I had a person who would basically “throw the rock” and then “hide his/her hand.” Finally, I got so tired that I began to launch counter attacks. That person would then go to the boss and basically say, “Look at what Eddie did?” Of course, by that time, the boss never saw what the other person was doing; he only saw my actions. I then realized that counterattacks were not successful and I needed a new strategy, so I began to overcome evil with good. And when I did, a strange thing happened – – – I was no longer affected by the rock thrower. They talked about me and even performed malicious acts at work to hinder my progress, but these actions did not stop me. Actually, the more I operated in overcoming evil with good, the easier this strategy became. I had even reached the point where nothing the rock thrower did had any outcome on me. And that is where God is trying to take you today.
God is trying to get you to the point where your critics don’t phase you – – – because you’ve got a mighty task to perform. And if you let critics stop you, slow you down, or side track you, you’ll never complete what God has ordained you to do. If you let evil doers get you upset, the task won’t get done. If you let people talking about you throw you off course, you’ll never see your destiny and reach your promised land.
So today, I proclaim that you will overcome. You’ll have no more deferred destiny, no more delayed destiny, and no more deterred destiny because this day, you will overcome evil with good. You will operate in the things of God with patience, wisdom, knowledge, love, and understanding. You will stay true to the path God has placed you on because it is the only path worth traveling. And you will never again be overcome with evil; instead, in all ways and in all your days, you will overcome evil with good!
