John Piper Devotional 6th October 2023 | Friday
Read John Piper Devotional 6th October 2023 By DesiringGod Ministry.
TOPIC: Justice Will Be Done
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Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” (Romans 12:19)
All of you have been wronged at one time or another. Most of you, probably, have been wronged seriously by someone who has never apologized or done anything sufficient to make it right.
And one of the deep hindrances to your letting that hurt and bitterness go is the conviction — the justified conviction — that justice should be done, that the fabric of the universe will unravel if people can just get away with horrible wrongs and deceive everyone.
That is one of the hindrances to forgiveness and letting grudges go. It’s not the only one. We have our own sin to deal with. But it is a real one.
We feel that just to let it go would be to admit that justice simply won’t be done. And we can’t do it.
So we hold on to anger, and play the story over and over again with the feelings: It shouldn’t have happened; it shouldn’t have happened; it was wrong; it was wrong. How can he be so happy now when I am so miserable? It is so wrong. It is so wrong!
This word in Romans 12:19 is given to you by God to lift that burden from you.
“Never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God.” What does this mean for you?
Laying down the burden of anger, laying down the practice of nursing your hurt with feelings of being wronged — laying that down — does not mean there was no great wrong against you.
It does not mean there is no justice. It does not mean you will not be vindicated. It does not mean they just got away with it. No.
It means, when you lay down the burden of vengeance, God will pick it up.
This is not a subtle way of getting revenge. This is a way of giving vengeance to the one to whom it belongs.
It is taking a deep breath, perhaps for the first time in decades, and feeling like now at last you may be free to love.
John Piper was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to Bill and Ruth Piper January 11, 1946. When John and his older sister were still small, the family moved to Greenville, South Carolina, where John spent his growing-up years. His father was an itinerant evangelist, and his mother died in 1974 in a bus accident while visiting Israel.
In 1980, sensing an irresistible call of the Lord to preach, John became the senior pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he ministered for almost 33 years.
Desiring God began inauspiciously in 1994 when John handed off the church’s tape ministry to his assistant, Jon Bloom.
What started with tapes and John’s books, Desiring God has blossomed into an international web ministry with 14,000+ free resources and 3.5+million monthly users. Today, John serves as lead teacher for the ministry.
READ MORE TOPICS: OPEN HEAVENS, OUR DAILY BREAD, IN TOUCH, SEEDS OF DESTINY, STREAMS OF JOY, JOEL OSTEEN, MOUNTAIN TOP LIFE, DCLM DAILY MANNA, UCB WORD FOR TODAY
