Do good to them that hate you.

Doing good to the people that hate you is a step deeper into love, into becoming more like Christ, and into perfection. In this scenario, you don’t just stop at blessing the people that curse you, but you go further into showing practical acts of kindness to people that hate you.

In Romans 12 verse 20, we see Apostle Paul quote the wise man Solomon. That portion of the Holy Scriptures reads thus, “If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink; for you will heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you.”
Proverbs 25:21‭-‬22 HCSB.

Now, the expression “heap burning coals on his head” doesn’t mean that God will literally pour coals of fire upon the head of your enemies – He could actually do that if he wanted. It simply means that by doing good to our enemy, we pile up a deep and burning sense of shame upon his head, insomuch that he will eventually repent of his evil actions and join us to be kind.

The case of Joseph.

The statement of Joseph in Genesis 50:20 is one that made me both sob and think deeply. He said ‘‘As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present outcome, that many people would be kept alive [as they are this day].’’

You need to take a moment to recall what the brothers of Joseph did to him in the preceding chapters – we often rush to the end of success stories without pondering on the events leading up to such ends.

Joseph was so hated by his brothers that they plotted to kill him. Had Reuben not posed a resistance (Genesis 37:22), Joseph would have been assassinated and his meat fed to the animals.

He was eventually sold into slavery, suffered physical and sexual abuse at the hand of Potiphar’s wife, falsely accused and imprisoned and forgotten by those he helped interpret their dreams.

As I read this around 4 am this morning, I exclaimed ‘‘Oh Lord, give me the heart and perspective of Joseph!’’ Because it’s a heart that is rare to find and a perspective that only God can work out in you.

I don’t know if you can imagine nine of your siblings hating you so much that the first thing that came into their mind as you brought them food in the bush was to kill you.

And when their plan for murder was aborted, they sold you into slavery and went home to tell your parents with boldface that you’ve been killed by a wild animal. As though these weren’t enough, they were so hypocritical as to comfort their mourning father for MANY DAYS.

Their pretence didn’t wane nor was their hearts pained even after many days of seeing their father groan in pain and think of committing suicide. It’s only a man that is perfect in love that’d do good to the people that hated him unto death.