The Cost of Forgiveness

Matthew 18:35 NIV Forgive your brother from your heart

I read an article on forgiveness that hit me with the ‘ole one, two punch.’ Like all of you, learning to completely forgive and what that means has been an ongoing process for me. Just about the time I think I’ve got it figured out, another facet of forgiveness is brought to my attention either by my need to forgive or through an insight the Lord shared with me. Today, it came through an article by Neil Anderson. Read what he has to say slowly…this may mean you have to deliberately slow down and/or reread it several times but it is weighty enough to warrant the effort.

Forgiveness is agreeing to live with the consequences of another person's sin. Forgiveness is costly; we pay the price of the evil we forgive. Yet you're going to live with those consequences whether you want to or not; your only choice is whether you will do so in the bondage of bitterness or the freedom of forgiveness. That's how Jesus forgave you--He took the consequences of your sin upon Himself. All true forgiveness is substitutional, because no one really forgives without bearing the penalty of the other person's sin.

Wow, ‘Forgiveness is agreeing to live with the consequences of another person's sin. Forgiveness is costly; we pay the price of the evil we forgive’. Jesus paid for our sin on the cross, just as He did for those that sin against us. We know that, we believe that. We also know the consequences of sin are not taken away even though forgiveness has been made possible through Jesus. This is WHY we still have to deal with the costly consequences of the sin we, too, forgave. They are here on earth with us, around us, in us and manifested in ways that affect us, like it or not. Forgiving is the first step of healing, not the last. Yet you're going to live with those consequences whether you want to or not; your only choice is whether you will do so in the bondage of bitterness or the freedom of forgiveness.

Why then do we forgive? Because Christ forgave us. God the Father "made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Corinthians 5:21). Where is the justice? The cross makes forgiveness legally and morally right: "For the death that He died, He died to sin, once for all" Romans 6:10.

How do you forgive from the heart as instructed in our reference scripture? First, you acknowledge the hurt and the hate. If your forgiveness doesn't visit the emotional core of your past, it will be incomplete. This is the great evangelical cover-up. Christians feel the pain of interpersonal offenses, but we won't acknowledge it. Let God bring the pain to the surface so He can deal with it. This is where the healing takes place.

This part hit home for me: If your forgiveness doesn't visit the emotional core of your past, it will be incomplete. This is the great evangelical cover-up. As Christians, we tend to think ourselves less Christ-like when we feel anger and hurt, so we sprinkle a little ‘holy water’ on ourselves and climb up on our spiritual high horses above the ugliness of both the sin against us and the feelings we have endured because of it. Ignoring it does not ‘forgiveness’ make. It doesn’t ‘feel good’ so we push it back into the recesses of our minds and think around it, all the while abscess and infection is quietly eating away at us because we did not allow for healing from God.

Ask God to bring to your mind those you need to forgive. Make a list of all those who have offended you. Since God has forgiven them by His grace, you can forgive them too. For each person on your list, say: "Lord, I forgive (name) for (offenses)." Keep praying about each individual until you are sure that all the remembered pain has been dealt with. Don't try to rationalize or explain the offender's behavior. Forgiveness deals with your pain, not another's behavior. Remember: Positive feelings will follow in time; freeing yourself from the past is the critical issue.

Sharing the Wealth

Today I am sharing an article I read by Steve Arterburn. I enjoyed it and I hope you do, too.

Walk With a Limp by Steve Arterburn

When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. - Genesis 32:25

There’s a story in the Bible about Jacob wrestling with God, and as a result, God touched Jacob’s hip resulting in Jacob walking the rest of his days with a limp.

Have you wrestled with God? What’s your limp? Do you have a scar or a wound that you have hidden from the world? Note that God gave Jacob a limp. Unlike a scar or a wound, you can’t hide a limp. It shows whenever you get up and move around. I think God wanted Jacob to limp with pride. It was his battle scar.

What’s your battle scar? Have you accepted them for what they are and for the person they have made you? Have you allowed the pain of your wrestling match to grow you into a better, more compassionate person? Let God unfold more of His beauty and grace and love in your life. Would you have it any other way?

God will take the lowest of all and raise him up. He’ll take the weakest one and strengthen him. He’ll take the most insecure and fill him with courage. He’ll take the least and make him the most.  All you have to do is let him.

So, whatever your limp is, walk with it and don’t deny it. It is who you are, and He is molding you into a masterpiece. You are who you are because of your painful past. God accepts you right where you are, limp and all.  I hope you do, too.  

“Comfort and prosperity have never enriched the world as much as adversity has.” - Billy Graham (1918-    )
 

The Thinker Strikes Again

Jeremiah 29:11, ' For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope'.

I am, indeed, my own worst enemy. To explain for those of you that do not know me well on a personal level, let me say I have had a lifetime of over analyzing things to death. I am a thinker and I think way too much. I blame it on being ambidextrous. Since I can use both hands, I believe I am the victim of having to think enough to appease both left brain and right brain. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.   

I ponder, analyze, look at something from as many different perspectives as I can come up with and, in general, can think myself into a paralyzed position. This has saved me on many an occasion and, sadly, been to my detriment on others. I have a friend that once told me I would shop myself out of everything I ever wanted…meaning I would debate with myself about justifying the purchase and put things back on the shelf more often than not (even in the grocery store), certain I would find it somewhere else for a better price, only to find I lost out on it in the end. I believe I do the same thing with all that prolonged thinking and pondering. The right side of my brain wants to go with my gut instinct, to jump off and try new things, to explore and delve into adventure. The left side considers the logical points and potential speed bumps in the road of life. If you think this sounds convoluted and hard to follow, you should try living in my head! On top of all that, I am a writer and I see storylines in almost everything…they live in there, too.

I had a ‘light bulb moment’ this afternoon about this very thing. I have been stuck in a crossroad and making myself, and anyone who would listen to me, absolutely crazy about what I should or shouldn’t do, which fork in the road to take, what direction to turn…blaa blaa blaa! I’m sick of hearing myself talk about it. So today, as I was reading yet another article on seeking God’s will for my life, God took the Left side of my brain and had me edit and distill the information. Like me, it was too wordy. Then, I distilled it again, seeking the essential nuggets within. When I got it down to the bare bones, the Right side of my brain kicked in and said, “Well, DUH!”

These are the bare bones God revealed to me which are involved when wanting to discern His will for my life:

First, if you really want to know God's will, you must be willing to do it even before you know what it is.   check

Second great principle for knowing the will of God is nothing can be the will of God that is contrary to the Word of God.    check

Third principle is the daily and even hourly fellowship with the Lord.   check

Forth, you must be prepared for the Lord to guide you into new ways.  check

I have looked for that postcard from Heaven with detailed instructions (left brain) while the desire for change (right brain) has struggled trying to walk a thin line to make sure I didn’t step out of His will or get ahead of Him and His timing. Being "in His will” is not a location or vocation or any one thing or another, it is a lifestyle of living for Him, serving and keeping your eyes on Him! So, as long as what I do or where I go falls within all of those parameters, I will be walking in His will for me. I have made this a much more difficult time and decision process than it needed to be. Good grief! That’s exactly what I caused myself, much grief. Can you imagine my relief as this sunk in?? I wanted to dance.

'The steps of a righteous man are ordered by the Lord, and He delights in his way' (Ps 37:23).

Growing Season

John 15:1-10 "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love.”

My backyard gardening has been downsized for the season. I wasn’t able to get my raised bed ready this past fall for spring planting so, to make the best of it, I decided to let it go fallow this season. Apparently the weeds didn’t get the memo; they are thriving in abundance where squash should be!

I could not just let this time go by without growing something so I settled on a patio tomato plant on the front deck. It is caged and tied up in a corner of the deck where it is protected from some of the 23 hours of daylight savings sun but nothing can protect it from the wind. Typically, my tomato bed has been in the back alongside the house where it had maximum wind protection. This year my lone plant is either going to make it or not against the wind. The Pro’s for the deck site are that I haven’t had any issues with insects (said in a whisper so they do not hear) and, surprisingly, none from birds. My deck is level with the tree tops nearby so the tomatoes are eye level for the birds. The Con’s…well, the wind. There isn’t any protection from it at all on the deck.

 
I said all that to say this, my little tomato plant looks pitiful. She has tomatoes and they are getting bigger everyday but the actual plant shows the wear and tear of life on the deck. I think we can take a lesson from that plant. I, too, often feel beat-up by the harsh winds of life and circumstance. We all go through our seasons of adversity and, like summer heat in Texas; some of those seasons seem to drag on forever! Yet, for every withered and broken branch, new growth is sprouting from the joint at the vine and good fruit is maturing. New tiny tomatoes can be found showing promise for the future. Life goes on in its determined desire for survival against the odds. That tomato is only doing what plants do; it is blooming where it is planted and bearing good fruit. 

That’s the lesson…we, too, can stand up to our circumstances, beaten though we may be, to grow and bear good fruit because and only because we are the branches, Jesus our Vine and God the Gardener. Happy Growing Season to us all.

God's Timing

Romans 11:33 How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!

What’s it all about, this thing named ‘a calling’ from the Lord? When you ‘know’ what it is the Lord has chosen for you to do in a deep spiritual way, reservations take a backseat to determination and you march on, head up, trusting He will show you the way. At least that is how it was for me. God’s vision for my life of service became my vision and I was determined to be faithful to that even though it seemed as remote and unrealistic as it could be for a little girl from small town Texas.

Catching a vision of the special contribution God wants us to make through our lives is exciting and inspiring. Once the initial ‘honeymoon’ phase of recognition has faded, we ask ourselves: Now what? What happens next?

Usually, the next step after catching a vision is to see it die. There is a special reason for this: our vision often contains a combination of godly concerns and human perspectives, so God engineers a way whereby the godly concerns remain and the human perspectives are changed to divine perspectives. His way of doing this is to cause the vision to die. This is a Biblical principle that can be traced from Genesis to Revelation. The vision Abraham received of being the father of a great nation "died" when he found his wife was barren. The vision Moses received "died" when he was rejected by his people and was forced to flee into the desert for forty years.

Why, we ask, does God bring a vision to birth and then allow it to die? For this reason: the waiting time in which we find ourselves during the death of a vision is God's classroom for the development of godly character in us. It is in the waiting time, as the vision "dies” that such qualities as patience, persistence, perseverance and self-control are built into us. We are molded by His hands so we are able to be more useful. Obedience and willingness to follow the vision came first, now we are going through refining process. He, alone, knows what will be required of us and what we lack to face the challenges ahead. His judgments and plans are perfect; we tend to get a little 'jiggy' about things and jump in the deep end before we learn to swim.

Has God given you in the past a vision of something that you knew was definitely from Him - but now the vision has died? Then don't be discouraged. This is the way God works. He is using the waiting time to change your ideas to His ideas and your perspectives to His perspectives. It's not 'over' by any means; things have not even begun to happen! Hold on for the ride of your life!