DO UNTO OTHERS
Opening Prayer
Speak to me today, Lord Jesus. Teach me how to be more like You.
Read Obadiah 1:15–21
15 “The day of the Lord is near
for all nations.
As you have done, it will be done to you;
your deeds will return upon your own head.
16 Just as you drank on my holy hill,
so all the nations will drink continually;
they will drink and drink
and be as if they had never been.
17 But on Mount Zion will be deliverance;
it will be holy,
and Jacob will possess his inheritance.
18 Jacob will be a fire
and Joseph a flame;
Esau will be stubble,
and they will set him on fire and destroy him.
There will be no survivors
from Esau.”
The Lord has spoken.
19 People from the Negev will occupy
the mountains of Esau,
and people from the foothills will possess
the land of the Philistines.
They will occupy the fields of Ephraim and Samaria,
and Benjamin will possess Gilead.
20 This company of Israelite exiles who are in Canaan
will possess the land as far as Zarephath;
the exiles from Jerusalem who are in Sepharad
will possess the towns of the Negev.
21 Deliverers will go up on[a] Mount Zion
to govern the mountains of Esau.
And the kingdom will be the Lord’s.
Footnotes
- Obadiah 1:21 Or from
New International Version (NIV)Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Reflect
Is your natural response to fight back when you are insulted or to retreat and avoid? Or do you show a God-response?Judgment is never an easy reality. It carries a sense of failure and shame for those being judged, let alone the fear of the sentence. Obadiah’s decree over Edom reaches its climax and conclusion in these verses. Its unjust dealings against Israel have not been forgotten and redress is coming. As they did to Israel, so will it be done to them. And judgment in the Bible isn’t essentially about retribution but moral memory.
God has not forgotten the suffering borne by Israel because of Edom’s pride, and is now acting on their behalf. It may have been a long time in coming but the injustices of the past have not been glossed over. In the same way that war crimes and crimes against humanity are often prosecuted decades after the atrocities committed, so too God remembers the plight of Israel. And as CS Lewis reminds us in his Reflections on the Psalms,1 God’s judgment is often a cause for praise that He is coming to the rescue of His people. Justice may be a long time coming, but it’s on the way.
In a daily media cycle often dominated by stories of injustice and oppression, let’s pray with confidence to the One who never forgets and who acts on behalf of the poor and dispossessed.
1CS Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms, Harcourt, Brace, 1958, reprinted 2017 by HarperOne
Apply
Do to others what you would have them do to you. This rule is essential in a disciple’s life (Matthew 7:12). As you review your relationships before God, what place does this golden rule have?
Closing prayer
God, it’s not easy to fight my natural responses and respond with love and patience. May I walk in the Spirit today instead of the flesh.
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