Romans 12:17-18 NLTNever pay back evil with more evil. Do things in such a way that everyone can see you are honorable. 18 Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone.
The other day I referred in a talk which I was giving that the mission of the Christian is to stop evil with love through the gateway of forgiveness. I tried to make the point using the illustration of dominoes lined up in a row, and that when tipped over each domino takes out the next innocent one next to it not the domino that initiated the fall.
We as sinful people often do the very same thing. When someone does us wrong we often take it out on innocent ones around us, then they do the same, then others do the same, and so falls the dominoes of life except they are not dominoes but people. Evil works in this way. The only way to stop the dominoes from being tipped over is if either they were far enough apart that the one falling couldn’t touch the next one or to have a domino with enough strength to withstand the attack from the previous domino. In regards to people, no one can isolate themselves never to be hurt from people because the fact is so many of us hurt ourselves, and the only way to withstand the attacks of evil from others is through love and forgiveness. Now some may say, what about retaliation? That only means you would start your own evil “domino fall” in a new direction, but wouldn’t actually stop the dominoes from falling. The only way we can stop the dominoes of evil from falling forward beyond our lives are to forgive the ones in love who in our past. To let go and let God handle all that, and by doing so stop the forward motion of evil so that freedom is the result.
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