Romans 12:21 encourages us to not be overcome with evil. Do you ever find this to be hard? Evil takes on many forms...I pretty much refuse to watch the news, or sometimes even turn my tv on because of the amount of evil in this world. I get tired of hearing constant negatives and people arguing back and forth about countless issues. Not to say that some of those issues don't need argued about, but there is a time and a place.
The evil Paul is referring to here, though, is the evil that comes against you from other people; from your enemies. This is the end of a section with the heading "love." The passage commands us to bless those who persecute us and to not repay any evil for evil.
Let me tell you, when someone hurts me the first thing I want to do is hurt them back. It is my natural response to pain. Pain breeds more pain. When I feel pain, I want to inflict it on others. And that is how cycles of hurt begin and get passed from generation, relationship to relationship. None of which is deserved, or fair.
The way to break the cycle of hurt is to stop dealing out pain. Do not overcome evil by causing more evil; overcome evil by causing good. Instead of hurting those who hurt us, we should actively seek opportunities to pray for them and to help them when possible.
I'm hopeful that you don't have many enemies in life. But if you do, think twice about repaying evil with evil. Be strong enough to break the cycle.
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