{"id":5188,"date":"2024-04-21T07:06:50","date_gmt":"2024-04-21T12:06:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/?p=5188"},"modified":"2024-04-21T07:06:50","modified_gmt":"2024-04-21T12:06:50","slug":"overcoming-hatred-with-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/2024\/04\/21\/overcoming-hatred-with-love\/","title":{"rendered":"Overcoming Hatred with Love"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><span style=\"font-family: lucida sans unicode, lucida grande, sans-serif;\"><strong>Romans 12: 9-21<\/p>\n<p><\/strong><\/span>As we continue in the Lenten season, we are called to reflect on what it means to follow Christ. \u00a0The world teaches us to be self-seeking and focus on what we want. However, in Romans \u00a0Chapter 12, Paul describes the marks of a true Christians. He teaches us to love each other and \u00a0honor others (vs 10), to be generous to others (vs 13), and to live in peace with others (vs 16). \u00a0Paul specifically instructs us to not be vengeful, that we are to place our angry desire for payback \u00a0in God&#8217;s hands. This is the key to overcoming evil and breaking out of the cycle of evil for evil \u2013 \u00a0giving the agenda of justice or payback over to God. He can fight for us and judge our enemies \u00a0according to His will.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>It is easy for us to become bitter and upset when someone wrongs us, whether it&#8217;s when someone \u00a0cuts us off when we are driving or when we are treated unfairly at work. But Jesus shows us \u00a0another way, the way of love and peace. For when Jesus\u2019s enemies sought to kill Him, He \u00a0endured the harm and suffering of the cross and returned good for evil. And in doing so He \u00a0shows us how to overcome evil with good. He wasn\u2019t overcome with vengeance when He was on \u00a0the cross, but extended grace and forgiveness to His persecutors. He overcame through the power \u00a0of love. God continuously offers God&#8217;s grace to Christians and evildoers even though we do not \u00a0deserve it. We need God\u2019s grace to overcome evil through the power of love.<br \/>\nEven when you think someone may deserve a negative response for an action, choose instead to \u00a0respond positively.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Followers of Christ, we need to overcome hatred with love. It is easier said than done. But it is \u00a0our Christian responsibility to show this grace so people will see the mercy and love of Christ. \u00a0And even if we fail to follow this command, we can always come back to the foot of the cross in \u00a0repentance and receive His grace to keep living in the image of God.\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div><strong>Prayer<\/strong><br \/>\nDear Father, God of the lowly and broken, help me to live in harmony with others. Help me to \u00a0show grace and forgiveness even when I am wronged.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Thought for the Day<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Are we ready to intentionally be slow to anger and abounding in love? \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Lalu Thomas \u00a0<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Chicago Mar Thoma Church, Des Plaines, Illinois<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Romans 12: 9-21 As we continue in the Lenten season, we are called to reflect on what it means to follow Christ. \u00a0The world teaches us to be self-seeking and&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5189,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reflections"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/hands-reach-help.jpg?fit=1200%2C627&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5188"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5190,"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5188\/revisions\/5190"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}