Responsibility vs. Revenge

Reposted from admin@lancewallnau.com

Lead yourself well.

Sometimes, before you can deal with a spiritual enemy, you need to remove the legal groundwork beneath his feet. This is where repentance comes in. It is an act that involves accurately judging yourself and owning where you are wrong.

“All or nothing” thinking is a trap. For example, suppose you are mostly right and the other person is mostly wrong. What if you are 25% at fault, but they are 75% at fault? Can you do 25% repentance and reconciliation? No.

But you can take 100% responsibility for your 25%...and this often releases grace on the other person to own their 75%.

There will be other times when you need to ignore the enemy. This isn’t easy. Have you ever got into a fight where you want to keep at it? The hardest thing to do is to stop and disengage! If you are accustomed to verbally persuading and influencing others, something inside you wants to talk, text or type your way into triumph! But it never works. You can’t win a spiritual battle by talking about it. Additionally, if the spirit has an offended person attached, you are in for a season of never-ending verbal volleyball.

That’s where you need to ignore the situation. Bide your time. David ignored the deeds of those who conspired against him, but told his son Solomon that he needed to deal with those specific troublemakers if his administration was going to succeed. Think of yourself as a combination of David and Solomon. David is the guy that messed up and gave the enemy an opportunity to injure the dynasty. Solomon is the “wisdom” that came out of it (remember what happened with Bathsheba?). Once you get wisdom (often from the consequences of your bad decisions), God gives you a season to deal with your enemies and uproot them.

Romans 12:19 reminds us that revenge is not an option: “Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord.” If we do our best to overcome evil with good, and it does not work, there is always the prospect that God will take matters into His own hands and overcome evil by visiting it with an ax. Isn’t that the point Jesus made about the unfruitful tree?

Jesus taught that a tree may have a delayed fruition, but, if it persists in its unfruitful state, it will be uprooted. What if God does that with areas of our life? He “dungs around the tree,” so to speak, but after a while, if things don’t yield to the Master, He uproots it. This cycle is manifest in David’s unfinished business being taken care of by Solomon.

So how can you apply this principle in your own life? Be wise. Remove the legal groundwork. Respond with the opposite Spirit (the Holy Spirit). Repent of 100% of your mistakes. Bless and do good.

As One, Lance Wallnau