{"id":7351,"date":"2019-11-25T06:00:13","date_gmt":"2019-11-25T14:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/?p=7351"},"modified":"2019-11-25T09:54:02","modified_gmt":"2019-11-25T17:54:02","slug":"endure-the-pain-matthew-511-devotional","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/endure-the-pain-matthew-511-devotional\/","title":{"rendered":"ENDURE THE PAIN! &#8211; Matthew 5:11 Devotional"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Matthew 5:11<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; padding-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"color: #c40000;\"><strong><em>\u201cBlessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I once had a man from my congregation make an appointment to talk with me. He came to our home and we enjoyed a light lunch before going into my office. Out of the clear blue I heard these words:\u00a0<strong><em>\u201cI hate your guts!\u201d<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0Wow!\u00a0\u00a0You could have knocked me over with a feather.\u00a0\u00a0Prior to this there did not seem to be any sort of conflict between us, so his statement was an unexpected blow.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With my mind reeling, I prayed silently for God\u2019s wisdom and strength. With as much sincerity as possible I said, \u201cI am so glad that you feel free to share your feelings with me.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0From that incident I would like to suggest a few ways to respond to and love the unlovable:<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(1)\u00a0\u00a0Rely on God\u2019s wisdom in dealing with the person.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(2)\u00a0\u00a0Realize that these unlovable people need love\u2014perhaps more than others.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(3)\u00a0\u00a0Remember how unlovable our sins are in God\u2019s sight.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(4)\u00a0\u00a0Rejoice that we are counted worthy to encounter persecution.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(5)\u00a0\u00a0Respond with love rather than retaliate with resentment.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What happened on that Sunday evening so long ago?\u00a0\u00a0We spent time together as he poured out his heart.\u00a0\u00a0As he was leaving he looked me directly in the eye and said, \u201cPastor, I love you so much!\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Double Wow!\u00a0\u00a0That was certainly a dramatic change from the statement he had declared earlier.\u00a0\u00a0<strong>God is so good!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">May God richly bless you by your words and actions!<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>&#8211; &#8211; &#8211; Pastor Cecil<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Matthew 5:11 \u201cBlessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.\u201d I once had a man from my congregation make an appointment to talk with me. He came to our home and we enjoyed a light lunch before going into my office. Out [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-matthew"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7351\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}