“Bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”
–Luke 6:28“No one is safe from being blessed.” –Graham Cooke
I don’t have a lot to say in this article, so it shouldn’t take long to get through it all. I know the verse on blessing those who curse you has been done to death, and though it’s a very important verse it is far too easy to gloss over.
However, I would like for us to view it from a different perspective this time. What if we took it to mean more than simply wishing our enemies well? How might this change the way we lived as God’s people?
One of my favorite contemporary Christian thinkers is Graham Cooke. I get a lot of my more intense spiritual principles from reading his writing or listening to his sermons. According to Graham Cooke, “God has not called us to do the reasonable, the attainable, or the possible, he has called us to do the outrageously impossible!” In his own life, Mr. Cooke has done some pretty amazing things, all in keeping with what he believes God has called us all to do. He is blunt and fearless.
But it is not through his own strength or integrity that he does all these things. Graham Cooke recognizes the necessity of relying on the power of the Holy Spirit that lives within him to do the things that he could never do apart from God.
Mr. Cooke has been openly cursed by devout Satanists on more than one occasion, once by phone with some alarming results. His reaction to the latter event was to laugh and release God’s blessing into the life of not only that man, but the rest of his coven as well. The two men have since met as friends. The full story is pretty powerful. I will link it down below to give you all a chance to view it for yourselves.
So, considering that the Holy Spirit is supposed to live in each of us who call Jesus our beloved, let us reexamine this idea of blessing those who curse us. It seems Graham Cooke has done it quite literally on more than one occasion, and for him it wasn’t just about wishing his enemies well. Jesus himself did it to Paul when he was on the road to Damascus. As Saul, we must remember, he was Jesus’ biggest enemy, blaspheming his name and killing and torturing his followers. But Jesus appeared on the scene and blessed him, making Paul one his most outspoken Apostles. The book of Acts even begins with Jesus pouring out the power of the Holy Spirit on all of his followers.
Is it possible then that we, all of us individually, might be able to do these things? Yes, I rather think we could. If we fully submit to letting the Holy Spirit work her will in us, we might not only wish our enemies well, but be able to speak God’s blessings into their lives. “What you loose on Earth will be loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 16:19)
There are many people, both inside and outside the church, who desperately need God’s blessings. Some of them might even been delivering sermons from the pulpit. Let us not waste our words in what 2 Timothy chapter 2 calls “foolish and senseless arguments.” Instead, let us show these people what the love of the Father really looks like. Let us walk it out in public and in private.
Let us seek to enable the Father’s blessings in the lives of all we encounter, no matter their disposition toward us. In the face of such spirit filled loving, it takes a stubborn heart indeed to refuse the goodness of another. The stubbornness will persist in some, but this need not concern us. Only be open to receive your blessings in turn and God will show you what to do with them. Neither believers who hate us, nor unbelievers who scoff at us are safe from being blessed. God blesses all, whether they want it or not. It is simply a question of whether or not we allow those blessings to take root and blossom in our lives. And those who give often receive abundantly in return.
So bless those who harm you in life, whether the abuse is physical or simply emotional, bless them with the full heart and spirit of God. In short, be amazing in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. And now, I leave you with Graham Cooke’s amazing story of his encounter with a Satanist:
Illinois native Simyona Deanova is a pansexual, gender-fluid Christian mystic who majored in English literature in college.