Coals of Fire

Vengeance is Mine, I will repay," says the Lord. Therefore "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; If he is thirsty, give him a drink; For in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Romans 12:19b-21

Most, if not all, of us have a built in mechanism of self defense. The story is told of a girl who carried with her a little black notebook. People wondered what was in the book. Finally, she admitted that in the little notebook were the names of people who had done her wrong and their names stayed in there until she "paid them back."

In the passage quoted above, God demands that we do just the opposite. Does anyone have the spiritual ability to follow those instructions? Until Jesus made possible the New Covenant with believers, following those commands was impossible. Even the Jews living out the old covenant could not have obeyed that commandment. In Psalm 41:10, the psalmist cried out to God concerning his enemies: "But You, O Lord, be merciful to me, and raise me up, That I may repay them."

Through Jesus, God gave us the New Covenant which lifts us above the lifestyles of those under the Old Covenant. Someone has said, "Every command in the Bible is a promise." That is, under the New Covenant of grace, there are no commands that we cannot keep—not in our own strength but in the strength of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.

The door is open for us to experience the super-natural life of grace that God has made possible for us when we live out our oneness with Christ—when we experience our spiritual crucifixion, burial and resurrection.

- David Kuykendall
www.livingbygrace.org