Jesus taught a Kingdom principle in Matthew 10:11-14.   This story helps me understand it better.

  

 

Mr. Wiseman was well known for his ability to respond to evil with good.  There was a man who knew about his reputation and he traveled miles and miles to test Mr. Wiseman. When he arrived he stood before Mr. Wiseman.  He verbally abused him constantly, he insulted him, he challenged him, he did everything he could to offend Mr. Wiseman.

Mr. Wiseman was unmoved, and the man was speechless. 

Mr. Wiseman simply turned to the man and said, “May I ask you a question?”

The man responded with “Well, what?”

Mr. Wiseman said, “If someone offers you a gift and you decline to accept it to whom then does it belong?”

The man said, “Then it belongs to the person who offered it.”

Mr. Wiseman smiled, “That is correct.  So if I decline to accept your abuse does it not then still belong to you?”

Does it help you?

Tags: forgiveness, Jesus, offense, reactions, response

by Colleen Foshee

This entry was posted on Monday, August 30th, 2010 at 12:01 am and is filed under C-Notes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.