A List from Romans 12 (taken from the New Jerusalem Bible):
Never pride yourself on being better than you really are.
Think of yourself dispassionately.
When you give, you should give generously.
If you are put in charge, you must be conscientious.
If you do works of mercy, let it be because you enjoy doing them.
Love without any pretense.
Avoid what is evil; stick to what is good.
Let your feelings of deep affection for one another come to expression.
Regard others as more important than yourself.
In the service of the Lord, work not half-heartedly but with conscientiousness and an eager spirit.
Be joyful.
Persevere in hardship.
Keep praying regularly.
Share with any of God's holy people who are in need.
Look for opportunities to be hospitable.
Bless your persecutors; never curse them, bless them.
Rejoice with others when they rejoice.
Be sad with those in sorrow.
Give the same consideration to all.
Pay no regard to social standing.
Meet humble people on their own terms.
Do not congratulate yourself on your own wisdom.
Never pay back evil with evil.
To the utmost of your ability, be at peace with everyone.
Never try to get revenge.
If your enemy is hungry, give him something to eat; if thirsty, something to drink.
Do not be mastered by evil, but master evil with good.
These are some difficult things to live out, but some of the absolute most important. What if we were to really take these instructions from Paul seriously? It's not easy.
It feels so natural to hate our enemy, and to look for ways to protect ourselves and get revenge. It's natural to consider a person's social standing and make judgments and decisions based on it.
It's natural to become so absorbed in your own life that you don't notice when others are rejoicing or weeping. It's natural to want to pay back evil for evil. It's natural to desire power. It's natural to let our relationships strain, rather than to lay down our agenda, gather up humility, and seek peace and reconciliation.
Jesus Christ himself shows us that there are richer and better ways of doing life. When he prays, "Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as in heaven," he's praying for us, his followers, that we will be the hands and feet that bring hope and new life to the nations--not just a promise of life in heaven, but a new life now. Kingdom life. Selflessness. Goodness. Mercy. Love. Peace. Healing. Forgiveness. Reconciliation. Kingdom life is not just what we have to look forward to. It has come, and it is coming. Look around you; God is doing his work of reconciliation at this very moment. It's his passion. It's beautiful.
There are a few things that reading this Romans 12 passage made me think of. Yesterday, I read an article that re-inspired me to pray for the leaders of our nation. Sometimes I get lazy about it, because frankly, I just feel so disappointed in the choices they (and we the people) are making and I start to feel overwhelmed. What if we, the people and leaders of the U.S., actually took the things that Jesus taught seriously? What if our money and energy was spent "giving our enemy food when he is hungry; giving him something to drink when he is thirsty" rather than in defense of our (elusive) freedom? Rather than immediate retaliation against our "enemies" can we instead consider mastering evil with good? To be at peace with everyone, as much as we are able? I desire this for the leaders of our nation, but these things are grass root. They have to start at the most basic, individual level. Change happens from the bottom up, rather than from the top down.
Is being the most powerful and rich country in the world really a blessing from God? I once heard my professor explain that "to bless" someone means to put it in its proper place. We bless God. He blesses us. If we were truly in our proper place (where God desires us to be), then the fruits we would bear would be things like peace, love, patience, gentleness, goodness, kindness, self-control. Does that sound like the way we use our power in the world? I do think it's possible to be in our proper place and to have some sort of position of power. Hierarchy is natural and helpful. But love and protection of power at others' expense is not from God. If we really believed that we were blessed by God, we would be so humbled and thankful that we could not help but be a blessing to others (didn't God bless Israel so that they could be a blessing to the nations?). Pass it on. Not horde it for ourselves. And we would live in a way that thought of ourselves dispassionately.
Maybe you can already see the conclusion I'm coming to with this. I don't believe that we are a powerful nation because God has ordained it this way. I believe we are a powerful nation because this is the way our broken world works. If we have money, we have power. If we have power, we feel safe. Everyone wants to be the powerful nation. Power is passed around, and trades hands throughout time. It's what we do with the power that matters. Whoever holds power also holds great responsibility to those who do not hold power. It seems to me that Romans 12 gives us some great guidelines for our relationship to others, and much of it has to do with valuing and loving the other more than you value and love your own life.
It's my prayer that we, the people who profess Christ as our King, will allow his peace and love to reign in our hearts, so that the Kingdom of God on earth (what is beautifully described by Paul in Romans 12) would truly come.
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