Taking the High Road

June 21, 2019

Taking the High Road

Don’t repay evil for evil. Don’t retaliate with insults when people insult you. Instead, pay them back with a blessing. That is what God has called you to do, and he will grant you his blessing.

1 Peter 3:9

The disharmony between denominations and blatant disrespect and lack of unity within some denominations is heartbreaking to Jesus, and should be to his followers as well. Perhaps the best evidence of sin’s total corruption of humanity is how Christians sing praise to God, all the while refusing to edify their brothers and sisters in Christ in other churches. Could John have been any clearer when he warned the church, “If anyone claims, “I am living in the light,” but hates a Christian brother or sister, that person is still living in darkness” (1John 2:9)?

Booker T. Washington died before he was sixty, yet he accomplished so much in his life. Of all his many accomplishments, the greatest was his commitment to make this statement his core value: “I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate them.” This is not a virtue we see emulated in our secular culture, and regrettably we are seeing less of this virtue in our churches.

My Takeaway: Thinking about today’s passage helps me understand a scripture verse that has been a bit of a mystery to me. It is bookended between Paul’s unsurpassed prose describing Christ’s sacrifice for our salvation, Philippians 2:5-11, and a verse that affirms God’s continuing work within me, Philippians 2:13. In the middle of such glory, Paul calls us to “to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. (Philippians 2:12). When we consider how completely counter-cultural is Jesus’ call on our life, I can well understand Paul’s choice of words.

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Copyright © 2019 by Alex M. Knight

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.