Are you involved in a conflict where you simply cannot bless the offender?

Resisting blessing does not wish our offender well before God. It treats others as they treat us. Jesus said, that His followers had been taught a legalistic interpretation of the greatest horizontal commandment to love one’s neighbor (Matthew 5:43). They had learned to treat others as they were treated by them. “Hate your enemy” did not come from Moses’ Law, but from the Pharisees as an abuse of Leviticus 19:18. In fact, the Law stated that hate was not to flow from one’s heart (Leviticus 19:17).

When we resist blessing our offender, we harden our heart toward God. This occurs in at least two ways.

First, resisting blessing impedes our love for God. When we resist blessing our offender, we are not loving our neighbor whom Jesus defined as everyone, including our enemy (Luke 10:36-37). Rather, we hate him. When we hate our enemy who is made in God’s image, we are not loving God: “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen” (1 John 4:20).

Second, resisting blessing our offender affects our vertical relationship with God by hindering our prayers because we will not pray for our offender, wishing him well before The Almighty. For example, Peter said that a husband’s prayers are hindered when he is inconsiderate and disrespecting toward his wife (1 Peter 3:7). When we hold on to resisting blessing our offender, we are inconsiderate and disrespecting of someone else created in God’s image.

Confess the white-knuckling of your offender to God, agreeing with His perspective of resisting blessing. Ask Him to renew your heart to be like His.

Episode 61: The Prison Wall of Resisting Blessing from mitchkrusetv on Vimeo.