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Suffering for Doing Good

8 Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble. 9 Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing. 10 For,

“Whoever would love life and see good days must keep their tongue from evil and their lips from deceitful speech. 11 They must turn from evil and do good; they must seek peace and pursue it. 12 For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”

 

These verses are all about how to live our lives. When I think of the attributes that describe Jesus; like-minded, loving, compassionate and humble, I see what Peter was trying to say. We were given the best example but because we aren’t perfect, we fall short of Jesus’s example. We are saints and sinners so because he was man and God, I believe that Jesus appreciated our humanness, understood it and was still loves us. He was sent to give us an example but to appreciate his example we need to strive to emulate his actions, thoughts and Love.

So, these verses need to be in front of me daily, so I don’t fall into the human trap of meeting evil with evil or insult with insult. To be truly a follower of our Lord we need to concentrate our thoughts, words and actions on what is good and ignore evil and insult as best we are able.

Let us pray: Father, thank-you for the gift of love that Peter describes in these verses. Help us to move forward in our lives by following your example of how to live our lives. Amen.

Robert Carrothers

robert.carrothers@gmail.com