How to Move On from Vengeance?

Rom 12:19
Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.

Very often we come across situations where we are not only terribly wronged but also slandered for speaking the truth to those who have wronged us. Moving-on from there… is not so much about saving your image in society but about acting sincerely in that situation in the sight of God. There may be times when you want to bludgeon people (who have wronged you) to death, and it is worse if you’re short tempered because then many who love the thrill of a near death experience will instigated you. Still what you should fear is not so much the Law Enforcement so as to save your own skin but you ought to fear God and nip it at the bud by way of repentance unto God before those thoughts fruition into actions. So, what you must go about doing is the next righteous thing, despite the slander and you will come to notice that when your time of testing is over, that the perpetrator/s who you were contending with is/are dealt with so severely by God, that you will feel sorry for them (Isaiah 10:12).

Psalm 3:7 (Call on Him to give you Justice)
Arise, Lord! Deliver me, my God! Strike all my enemies on the jaw; break the teeth of the wicked.

Mat 11:28 (Find your rest in Him through your trials)
28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

If you insist on avenging yourself, then the only moving-on you will be doing, will be from the frying pan to the fire. However, if you are willing to let the fear of the Lord rule over your heart (Ps 119:10-11), your life shall be blessed, in your moving on from a self-centered life to God-centered life because you will never be able to really move on (Mat 5:4-6) unless you die to yourself and live for the glory of God who is just (Jn 12:24-26). Though you may sometimes be so angry that you can vividly imagine the bloody justice you would stoop to, to set things right. The truth is you are neither God over that situation, nor over yourself, nor over the person you seek to get even with. So, the best thing is to do is to swallow your pride, overcome your anxiety and find your rest in Christ (Mat 11:28-29), by way of reading scripture or listening to some Gospel music because it is in dying to ourselves and living for God that we find true peace in our situations. Moving-on, is not something synonymous with weakness rather it is about portraying the meek nature of Christ where our actions emerge not from the love/faith we have in ourselves but from the love/faith we avail in God through Jesus Christ (Jn 3:16). So, when you place your faith in God, moving-on is the bravest thing you can do while you are at peace, resting in Jesus (Jn 14:27). In fact, when you act from such faith and move on, it makes the people who have hurt you feel insecure for no longer having that emotionally destructive hold on you anymore.

Psalm 14:1
The fool says in his heart,
“There is no God.”
They are corrupt, their deeds are vile;
there is no one who does good.

Prov 1:7
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,
but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Wisdom serves as a great comforter in helping us move on from acts of vengeance against those who have treated us unjustly. We must thereby understand that we live in a world where people think it’s ok to sin, as long as the people they are sinning against don’t know what they’re up to. However, for those victims who foolishly revere (from unholy fear) those who victimize them, their perpetrators are only encouraged to take advantage of them further because their victims awareness makes them feel unstoppable in their wickedness to a god-like degree. In all these circumstances, these sinners believe there is no God and they are in no way answerable for their actions to God. Though these who are wicked and unrepentant, may be wise in their own eyes, there is more hope for a fool than there is for them (Prov 26:12) & if you are ever stuck in such a circumstance, you need to learn to move on from being concerned about your image in the sight of people to being concerned about your image in the sight of God… in the sense, you need cut these people out of your lives and be totally unabashed about it, because you need not be deceived in revering people from unholy fear but you must learn to revere God from holy fear.

Rev 15
2 And I saw what looked like a sea of glass glowing with fire and, standing beside the sea, those who had been victorious over the beast and its image and over the number of its name. They held harps given them by God 3 and sang the song of God’s servant Moses and of the Lamb:
“Great and marvelous are your deeds,
Lord God Almighty.
Just and true are your ways,
King of the nations.
4 Who will not fear you, Lord,
and bring glory to your name?
For you alone are holy.
All nations will come
and worship before you,
for your righteous acts have been revealed.”

It’s amazing how unbelievers fool themselves into thinking that God doesn’t exist, so they can sin against their neighbour without even a second thought of contending with a gracious yet formidable God (Heb 10:31) because from the fall of Adam unbelievers are each a law to themselves but God can see through them like a sea of glass and if you will look at Rev 15:2 you shall notice that those who have come out of them (sea of glass) (Rev 7:14) were tutored in the fear of the Lord (Rev 15:4) unto wisdom and in their victory (Mat 24:13) they are equipped to praise God for the Salvation He has accomplished in them (Phil 1:6) through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus (Rom 5:9). For some reason I guess the unbelievers don’t get the idea of God’s good justice playing out in their life because their sinning is so rampant accompanied with that deliberate blindness that ‘there is no God’ that incurring God’s justice becomes as common as breathing air and if they have managed to fool themselves so far, fooling themselves further to have no fear-of-God is not a far-fetched idea but one which maintains them as fools in their sinning against the Triune God Almighty.

1 Corinthians 3
11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13 their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. 14 If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. 15 If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.

I would like to conclude this piece on moving-on from vengeance by expounding on the above scripture. Salvation is sure when we stand on the rock that is Jesus Christ and we mature spiritually depending on how we build on this foundation. For those whose hearts are established in Christ, moving-on from vengeance is a lesson we will learn either willingly which is the easier way or unwillingly which is the hard way (1Cor 3:15/Mat 3:11) because such is the pivotal role the Sovereign will of God plays in our lives.