After the events that have taken place in Manchester this week we in the United Kingdom are feeling very vulnerable.
You wonder sometimes about the twists and turns that life takes and why the road goes the way it does. Evil seems to be given free range and acts of evil are perpetrated to the devastation of society.
Our natural reaction would be to call down God's judgment on the perpetrators of such evil. In fact much of the Old Testament is based on this principle. If interested you can read the imprecatory Psalms to see this principle at work. The imprecatory Psalms are Pss 5, 10, 17, 35, 58, 59, 69, 70, 79, 83, 109, 129, 137, 140. 1
I, for one, am glad that the New Testament focuses on the grace of God. Judgment will still come but we are not called to pray down God's judgment but to extend God's love.
Jesus taught - Love your enemies, do good to them that despitefully use you (Matthew 5:43-48). That's hard, especially when you are a victim but God commends his love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). We were God's enemies but he was prepared to forgive us and reconcile us to himself because of what Jesus did on the cross.
May God help us to understand and live in the good of this truth.
1. Note - Imprecatory Psalms, contained within the Book of Psalms of the Hebrew Bible (תנ"ך), are those that invoke judgment, calamity, or curses, upon one's enemies or those perceived as the enemies of God(Source - Wikipedia).
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