Act Like A Christian

Scripture Reading: Romans 12:9-21

Focus Verse: Romans 12:14  “Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse.”

Bless those who do wrong to us.  What does that look like?  There was a police officer who stopped a woman from driving because she was breaking a law.  As soon as she put her window down, she began to insult the officer and call him horrible names.  The officer remained calm and seemed unaffected by the name calling.  He told the lady where she had broken the law as calmly as a person could...and she began saying that the officer was going to kill her, and her son and called him a murderer.  The officer continued to remain calm and brought another officer to come beside him as they were so kind and gentle with the woman.  The woman never stopped insulting him, never stopped yelling, and the officer only stayed with a soft voice and firmly handed her the paper notice of her ticket of her traffic offense. Then he ended with "have a good day."  This is a true story and it was on video.

Maybe you have a boss that makes things hard for you at work.  Or maybe your teacher is unreasonable in the classroom.  Or your husband or wife makes unrealistic demands of you. When we experience abuse from others, our natural response is to strike back.  Human pride causes us to hurt those who hurt us and insult those who insult.  What should we do as Christians in these situations?  Paul tells us in Romans chapter 12.  He says “bless those who persecute you.”  Wow, that’s the opposite of what we feel like doing to that person.  Some of the early Bible was written in the Greek language.  The Greek word for bless is “to speak well of”.  In English we use the word eulogy.  When someone gives a eulogy at a funeral they say nice things about the dead person.  But that’s what the Bible says we are to do.  Bless those who do wrong to us.  And maybe by our being nice to them, they will be won over to Christ for salvation. You never know what can happen when we act like a Christian.

Bobby Johnson

Interlocking Ministries