Hi, I am John Bevere, Co-Founder of Messenger International with, of course, my wife, Lisa. Welcome to God Today. I want to read a scripture to you to start your day off. This is 1 Peter 3:8, and I am reading from the NKJV. “Finally, all of you be of one mind. Have compassion for one another. Love as brothers, be tender-hearted. Be courteous.” Now listen to this statement, “Not returning evil for evil, or reviling [which is insult] for insult. But, on the contrary – blessing.” In other words, when evil has been done to you, God says, “return a blessing”. When you have been insulted, God says, “return a blessing”. What’s a blessing? I am insulted, I return with a genuine compliment. If I am done evil, I return it with genuine good.
Why does God tell us to do this? “But on the contrary, blessing. Knowing you were called to this.” This is our calling. Have you ever heard people say, “Hey, what am I called to do as a christian?” I am reading it to you right now. What is that calling? The calling is to handle unfair treatment. You know what I am talking about. When people do things to you, accuse you of doing things wrong when you are actually right. You are being falsely accused. Handling unfair treatment correctly. That is our calling. Why were we called to this? Listen to this. This is amazing. “That you may inherit a blessing.”
The next time you are mistreated. Somebody does evil, somebody gossips about you, somebody steals from you. You can throw up your hands and you can do a dance and you can say, “God is setting me up to get blessed.” Now, that’s only if you handle it correctly. You say, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, how do I handle it correctly?” By returning a blessing for an insult. You see, Jesus was our personal example. He did not defend Himself when He was being lied about by the rulers of the nation. He committed His case unto the Father who judges righteously.
Let me give you an example of what happened with me. I was really done wrong and it was by a boss, and it was going to affect my career, it was going to affect me going into ministry, and everything seemed to be going against me and nothing was going right. I remember desperately defending myself because of what my boss was doing with the senior pastor. One day in prayer, God gave me a vision. He said, “Son, as long as you were defending yourself, this is me.” I had a vision of the Lord and I saw Him from the shoulders down. His hands were behind His back as if they couldn’t be released. Then He said, “Son, if you give this to me, this is what I do.” The next thing I saw another vision with Him working on my behalf. I could give you countless testimonies of people that have been stolen from in business, not paid when they were supposed to be paid, insulted, written about, gossipped. When they handled it correctly, the reward, the blessing that God gave them was monumental.
Today, if you are mistreated, remember: return a blessing for that mistreatment so you can set yourself up to be blessed.