Date: 23rd November, 2025
Message: Overcoming Evil with Good
Minister: Pastor Laide Olaniyan
The current state of our nation is Satan wanting to sow seeds of discord in our hearts and break the strength of this nation. Satan wants bitterness, resentment and hate to come forth from our hearts. This statement is not trying to be insensitive to the plight of those who have lost their loved ones. This loss can get so personal that instead of mercy to pour forth from our hearts its bitterness, hate and that the circle of hurt, grief, pain should not be broken. It takes a work of mercy and grace in our heart for peace to come forth from our heart instead of bitterness. This is what the church has been called to.
There is the place of social justice but there is the place of the church standing in mercy. The grace to forgive those who persecute us, who murder our loved ones.
The church in Nigeria needs to find mercy and courage in the face of adversity to speak blessing instead of curse. The church has power to bless, power to give life, and it mustn’t be corrupted.
Jesus has paid for the salvation of all men but some of us will bear the completion of the salvation of men in our bodies. It is possible that even in the face of our pain, we can allow the work of salvation to be done in the heart of those who have hurt us. There are legitimate things that tie us to the earth. Some of us our heart stance is that if someone hurt us, while we don’t harm them back, there is a place where we hope harm eventually comes to them but if we can look away from our pain and see how Jesus can be glorified in the midst of it all, we’ll find ourselves even accommodating our enemies.
It is not the things that happen to us that matters but where we judge it from. Satan has given us an eye to interpret our pain from. There is a way we can prove ourselves by asking ourselves some daring questions just to try our hearts and see the response of our soul to certain situations. The reason why we give some responses is that our members are still tied to the earth. When we prove ourselves, we also need to be honest with the response of our heart and desire mercy that we might measure up to God’s standard.
(Exo. 34:6) – “And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,”. – The church needs mercy intervention for growth, stability and understanding. We are not rich in mercy yet like the LORD.
(1 Tim. 1:12-13) “And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry; 13 Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.” – Many times we have determined that the hurt people do was intentionally rendered but God with Paul showed him mercy because he knew he did them ignorantly. It takes an understanding to be merciful, to see the hurt as ignorantly done. To see that the things of the earth taken from us or denied us by men is not our life.
When mercy ensues from our heart and we see that these things are not our lives, healing can flow from our heart. The very deception that Satan did is make us see ministry for example with our lives but when we see God as our life, even if they take the ministry, everything that springs forth will be mercy.
(1 Pet. 3:9) – “Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing.” – We don’t give what we get but what we’re called to inherit. How we know we are still carnal is how we respond when things earthly are taken from us.
When people threaten to show us hell, that is, what they have inside, we should show them heaven; what we have inside of us (Rom. 12:21). What Satan does is send people to call out evil in us but we ought to respond from the work of good that has been done in us much more. We should always respond with light. We may look stupid or weak but what we are doing is heaping coals of fire on the person. We are sanctifying the person who did us evil or wronged us. (Rom. 12:19-21) The coals of fire we are to heap on our enemy’s head is for cleansing, purifying their mind, this is how we overcome evil with good (Isa. 6:5-7). It is a symbolic sign of sanctification to cleanse the mind of our enemies.
In the season where evil is abounding, we should be abounding with good. Many of us cannot see ourselves obeying some type of instructions towards our enemies that should cleanse them. Can you buy someone a gift who has hurt you deeply? Can you continue to draw them close in spite of the pain?
Satan has trained us to give evil for evil. If we are hurt, we hurt back. It is possible to overcome evil with good. How Satan keeps the circle of evil going round is the attitude of repaying evil with evil. Everyone wants to repay evil for evil and that is our sense of justice but if we can repay/overcome with good, we quench not just our capacity for evil but also that of the other person and that person is empowered to do good, setting up a cycle of good and not evil.
(Jam. 4:17) Let him who knows how to do good continue. We should strive to not fall below the conversation of faith when others try to pull us down. What Satan wants is for us to respond like earth will respond but God wants us to respond like heaven will respond (Phil. 3:20, Col. 3:1). Some of these conversations might require that we do them crying, but something has changed inside of us. We must come to a place where it is only blessing we know how to give even when we are cursed. We respond based on where we are going to, not what we are going through. God expects us to overcome evil with good.
Until we see the model of the heavenly man fully, we will not desire to look like him.
The heavenly man is not just one who knows the Bible, you’ll see his conversation of life and it’s different from how Satan has packaged most men on earth. The Jesus kind of man/woman has Jesus as his/her role model.
Most of us have others as our role model which spurs a subconscious labour to become like them. When we don’t measure up we feel downcast but when we see all of Jesus and how beautiful He is; His mercy, long-suffering etc, He becomes our aspiration. For now, holiness seems like a chore and grievous but when the life of Jesus is exalted before us and we see the beauty of longsuffering, we begin to aspire to be like Jesus. Many life styles and aspirations have been exalted before us, but we must begin to see Jesus.
What Satan does is show us only what Jesus takes away i.e our previous dreams and aspirations but he doesn’t allow us see what Jesus wants to give.
We are not yet affectionate towards good. Our affections are what we desire to see, things we desire to manifest or make visible, a deep longing of our soul (Col. 3:1-2). We often do not pursue life with a zeal to see it manifest in the flesh. Affection tells of a strong desire to see something we love. Our soul should labour to come into understanding now. We always have affection but we can set it anywhere. If it is not in heaven then it is on earth. Our soul by design has affection. We must find where our own is. When we check our saved pages on social media we see our affections. For some it could be with fashion, or education.
Concerning the things we have affection for, we can go the extra mile for them. The soul has energy for what it is affectionate about. We have the responsibility of finding where our affections are and set it on things above, meaning pursue heavenly things with the same ardour as we have in pursuing the things of the earth.
(Matt. 13:44) – “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.” – A person who has not sighted the kingdom and its treasures cannot be affectionate concerning things above. There’s a sense of worth that commands affection. God gives us eyes to begin to see heavenly things so that our souls will begin to acquire it. What calls for our affection is the value or promise it offers. A profane soul or a natural mind cannot see the value of things above.
An affection is something we can joyfully pursue that if we lose everything else to acquire it, it will look like we have not lost anything. Why God is painting these things is so we can desire them. God is painting heavenly things because we are cut off from that reality but heaven is tirelessly painting these things so we can see its beauty. He is showing us heavens but wants to bring us to a place where our soul is consumed by it. We need to see and be affectionate towards it (Col 3:3-4).
For some of us, getting married is more valuable than mercy or a job than patience. Blindness has made us not see what God is working out in us. Thank God He is not distracted by our complaints, He keeps working in us. Much more than working miracles which men love, He is showing us heavens, He wants to show us eternity.
Christ cannot be our life until we are affectionate concerning things that are Christ’s . Our life starts with being with Christ but He ought to end up as our life (Col 3:4). If Christ is to be our life, we must lose the grip of other affections that is our lust (Gal 5:24-25).
We must be consumed with a desire to be one with Christ. (Matt 6:24) We cannot serve two masters, one takes most of our strength. Our eagerness to the things of the earth is service, a soul response/pursuit to a promise. Satan wants us to be affectionate to earthly things, use our soul to serve it so that we can pass away with it. For the things concerning earth, our soul should be faithful towards how we handle them without any iota of lust. When we see others have it, we are not jealous. We also know these things are simply for use. We are much more consumed with being a charity being, aspiring to be Living and True.
THE END.