Take “The Revenge Lady” for example. Revenge Lady gives advice on using the ancient art of revenge to bring humor and happiness back to your life. There is even a revenge quiz so that you can find out if revenge is right for you! And in case you were thinking it was limited to ladies, there is also revengeguy.com offering to help you get even, pull one over, take revenge against those that have wronged you.
Love has no axe to grind
Anger is the enemy of love.
Man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life God desires Jas.1:20
Jesus said that anger was a serious business. In the Sermon on the Mount he said that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgement just as anyone guilty of murder. Why does Jesus take anger so seriously? What does anger do to us?
It causes us to act unwisely. Proverbs 29 says: A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control.
It creates conflict and disagreements. It promotes friction. An angry man stirs up dissension
It generates a need for revenge on those we see as our enemies. But Jesus calls us to bless those who persecute us and pray for our enemies. We are to walk the extra mile, give up our cloak, and turn the other cheek. Revenge has no place in the way of love.
Anger turns us into fools. Eccl. 7:9 Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools.
Managing anger
The simple truth is that we all get angry. Paul doesn’t say that love doesn’t get angry, he says that love is not easily angered. Remember patience? Patience is a long fuse.
Secondly we have, according to Paul in 2 Corinthians (5:18-19), a ministry and message of reconciliation. Reconciliation comes through the cross of Jesus, By his death we are reconciled with God and through his death we can be reconciled to each other. Not only this, but we can take this reconciliation to the world around us by sharing the message of Jesus with our angry, vengeful society.
Thirdly, we live out reconciliation. In the words of Jesus, we forgive those who have sinned against us.
Proverbs 17:9 He who covers over an offence promotes love, but whoever repeats the matter separates close friends.
Fourthly we must be ruthless in seeking to remove anger from our lives. In both Colossians and Ephesians Paul tells us simply to rid ourselves of anger.
Love keeps no record of wrongs
Why is it that we find keeping a record of the wrong done to us so much easier than remembering the blessings? I think we keep a record of wrongs in order to protect ourselves. Love is painful. Love is vulnerable and because of this we need some security and that comes through making sure we have reasons to withhold love. That’s a record of wrongs. It’s a list of why we shouldn’t love, why we shouldn’t forgive, why we shouldn’t be reconciled.
The problem with a wrong remembered is that we have to decide what the exchange rate is between a wrong and a right. Is it two to one, three, or more? How many times must the offender ask forgiveness, how many trustworthy things must they do before the debt is paid?
And yet of course we know that if God did this to us, then we could never pay the debt of all our wrongs.
Keeping a record of wrongs destroys friendships, ruins relationships, poisons parenting, undermines marriages, generates bitterness and harbours resentment. And what’s worse is that it can actually make you physically ill.
Take the case of the wife who went to the doctor and discovered that she had an ulcer. He wasn’t sure what the root cause was but suggested that it might be wise to seek the help of a counsellor.
On arrival in the counsellors office she placed on their desk an inch thick dossier of double-sided typed pages. The dossier contained a carefully chronicled list of all the wrongs she felt her husband had committed in their 13 year marriage. All of sudden the root cause of her ulcer became apparent.
You can usually tell when someone is a keeper of records, as one observer once pointed out: in an argument the keeper of records of wrongs usually get historical not hysterical.
Paul’s solution to keeping records is not simply to forget stuff, although choosing to put something away in the past is an important part of the process. In 1Corinthians 13 Paul offers us a positive alternative. We are to love in a way that always protects, always trusts, always hopes and always perseveres.
Love assumes the best about others. If someone inadvertently offends you, you choose to believe the offence was unintentional. If someone seeks to harm you, you "bear all things", forgiving unconditionally. If a positive light can be shed on a difficult encounter, you grasp it. If someone continually provokes you, you "endure all things". You never lose hope in the ones you love. You practice the same unconditional love towards others that Christ gives you.
From Day-by-Day
Love does not delight in evil
Anger and record keeping inevitably lead to the same place. A place where we become proud and self-righteous to the point that we take pleasure in the ill that befalls others. But love does not delight in evil: If love always thinks the best, always seeks to protect, to hope to persevere, then it cannot by its nature rejoice in that which is evil. To delight in evil is to take pleasure in someone else’s misfortune, to draw strength from another’s failure, to feel good when you get even with those who have wronged you.
None of this is consistent with the lifestyle to which we aspire as fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ.
And the more you delight in evil the less you will rejoice in truth. The more you take pleasure in the pain of others the less you will be drawn towards grace. You will want it for yourself, but it will always be something that deep-down you believe you deserve.
You will say to yourself, “I’m not as bad as this person or that person.” A delight in evil leads inevitably to a presumption of forgiveness. “Surely God will forgive me because my sins are nothing compared to the sins of so many others.”
But grace doesn’t work this way. Grace is not about how much you deserve it, it’s all about how much you don’t deserve it.
Perhaps the world experiences grace through the love it experiences through Christians
Philip Yancey, in his book What’s so Amazing about Grace, tells the story about a conversation one of his friend’s overheard on their daily commute. One passenger was reading the book The Road Less Travelled.
“What are you reading?” asked the neighbour.
“A book a friend gave me. She said it changed her life.”
“Oh. What’s it about?”
“I’m not sure. Some sort of guide to life. I haven’t got very far yet.” She began flipping through the book. “Here are the chapter titles: ‘Discipline, Love, grace,…’”
The man stopped her. “What’s grace?”
“I don’t know, I haven’t got to Grace yet.”
Perhaps our friends, neighbours, colleagues simply haven't got to grace yet and we're are the ones who can show them the way. But we can only do that when we stop grinding axes. If you’re not grinding an axe what are you doing?
In the OT the prophets tell the people that a day is coming when weapons of war will be turned in to farming implements. Now I know an axe is not a weapon of war as such, but the image caught my imagination.
If we’re not grinding an axe ready to take revenge, because that’s why we grind our axes, then we’re turning them into things that will nurture rather than destroy. Not only do we not do these things–envy, boast, get angry, delight in evil and record all wrongs no matter how small, but we do the exact opposite. We rejoice in truth, we forgive wrongs done to us, we bring peace.
In short we live grace.
