Laying Down The Weapons of
Unforgiveness - Purity 830
Purity 830 09/07/2022 Purity 830 Podcast
Good morning,
Today’s photo of a “hump” of a pine tree’s silhouette
in the light of a fiery sunset sky comes to us from a friend who captured this
scene presumably near their home in Greenville NY and shared it on social media
back on August 13th. They
also shared the following thoughts:
“One of the hardest things to purge is unforgiveness.
We’re tempted to think that unforgiveness gives us power, when in reality it
keeps us a victim. Yet we keep clinging
to our unforgiveness, convinced that doing so is fair.”
Well, it’s Wednesday and I thought my friend’s tree
was enough of a visual representation of “hump day” but I failed to remember
their comments about unforgiveness which I feel are both accurate and somewhat
timely.
Last night, I kicked off another Freedom in Christ Course
series of meetings on Zoom and did my best to encourage the participants to be
diligent in following the course to the end to grow closer to God in their
faith and to possibly share what they learn from the course with others.
As my Facebook friend pointed out in their post,
unforgiveness is one of the hardest things to purge but I know from my
experience that it is not impossible to be set free from. The Freedom in Christ Course and The Steps to
Freedom in Christ specifically address unforgiveness by encouraging the
participant to forgive from the heart.
The bitterness and grudges from unforgiveness can
make people feel powerful because they give the victim with an unforgiving
heart the “weapons” of hate and rejection.
“I don’t forgive you. I hate you. I reject you. You
can’t be a part of my life. And I won’t be weak by forgetting about it or by
forgiving you and allowing you to have peace with me!”
That’s an extreme case of unforgiveness, of course, but
these feeling of bitterness can even play a part in our “reconciled”
relationships and the only thing that is required for these “weapons” of bitterness
to be wield by the victim of unforgiveness is offense.
Have you ever been in a relationship with someone
who would bring up all the things you have done wrong to them the minute you have
a disagreement?
That’s not forgiving from the heart!
But our society and modern culture stokes grudges
and selfishness, unforgiveness is coping mechanism and a mechanism of
control. Unforgiveness soothes our hurting
heart with bitterness which is poison but because of the sense of power or control
it gives people feel justified in holding on to it. The world would tell you to never forgive.
That forgiveness is for the weak. The world raises the bar and not only commends
unforgiveness, it would encourage seeking revenge. Don’t get made get even.
But God’s way isn’t that way.
When Jesus was asked to teach His disciples to pray,
His prayer included a petition to be forgiven by God but it also indicates that
we would forgive too.
Matthew 6:12 (NKJV)
12 And forgive us our debts, As
we forgive our debtors.
The Apostle Paul in writing to the churches taught that forgiving is what Christians do:
Ephesians 4:32 (NKJV)
32 And be kind to one
another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ forgave
you.
And in that encouragement, Paul tells us why we
should forgive, because we have been forgiven.
I guess the problem people have with giving
forgiveness is they haven’t received it and thus find it hard to give
away.
So if that’s you, you need to receive your forgiveness
and peace with God by putting your faith in Jesus.
Many people think we have to earn our place in God’s
kingdom by some complicated measuring of our good deeds minus our bad deeds, but
that is a lie and like any good lie it has been told, shared, and believed by
most of the world.
But that is not the truth.
The reason Christ came and died and rose again was
to bring men to God by paying for their
sins with their life. Jesus died so we could be forgiven. We don’t have to do anything but receive the
gift of forgiveness and new life by putting our faith in Him.
So say a prayer that acknowledges your sins and that
declares Jesus as your Lord and Savior.
When you do that, you receive your forgiveness and
once you receive it you can let go of the bitterness that makes you feel
powerful and instead you can know the power of God’s love and you can share it
by forgiving those who have trespassed against you.
Forgiveness is setting yourself free of the
bitterness, the hurt, and the hate that comes from holding on to our pain.
We can forgive because God has forgiven us.
So keep walking and talking with God and share the
good news of the forgiveness that comes through faith in Christ alone that gives
you the power to live a life of righteousness and freedom. When
we walk with Him, the Lord takes the pain away and gives us peace.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Today’s Bible verse comes to us from “The NLT Bible
Promise Book for Men”.
This morning’s meditation verse is:
Isaiah 5:21 (NLT2)
21 What sorrow for those who
are wise in their own eyes and think themselves so clever.
Today’s verse reminds us of the ultimate dissatisfaction that
comes from thinking that we are wise and clever independently of God.
The problem is that no matter how smart we are or how much we
study and learn, we don’t know everything.
God does.
So we may become very skillful and wise on how to lead a
successful life by the world’s standards but unless we come in line with the
Lord’s wisdom, we are deceiving ourselves and one day will be exposed as
fools.
The way things work in the world and the way things work in God’s
kingdom are different. So as today’s verse tells us if we think we are wise in
our own eyes, by our own estimation, we eventually experience the sorrow of
learning that we didn’t know it all.
One of the greatest things about walking in the Spirit are those times
when we think we are walking strong and “doing everything right” only to discover that we are wrong about something
or when we mess something up. When we
fail, our spiritual pride is put in it’s place, and even though those times can
be very discouraging, we actually be encouraged because they demonstrate to us
that we are not wise and we desperately need the Lord to help us.
So seek the Lord and His wisdom and His presence. We can’t know everything
and God doesn’t expect us to know everything. He just wants us to know and walk
with Him.
______________________________________________________________________
As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org where I
always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to
assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk.
Today we continue sharing from Clinton E. Arnold’s
“Powers of Darkness”
As always, I share this information for educational
purposes and encourage all to purchase Clinton Arnold’s books for your own
private study and to support his work. This resource is available on
many websites for less than $20.00.
Receive and Appropriate God’s Enabling Power
We
now need to move beyond knowing we have access to God’s power into actually
using it. Paul stressed the role of faith in appropriating God’s power, that
is, the powerful work of his Spirit who indwells us. This kind of faith is
based on the objective fact of Christ’s resurrection and exaltation over the
powers of darkness. Wearing a magical charm or even a crucifix does not impart
God’s power to Christians; nor should we expect God’s power through some magical
use of Jesus’ name. God cannot be manipulated. His power is bestowed on his
people through simple trust in him.
Prayer is one of the
most natural expressions of trust in God. The apostle Paul modeled this
activity throughout his letters. This kind of communication with God
acknowledges his sovereignty and our dependence on him for all of life.
One distinct
advantage of having a revised world view that gives credence to the real
existence of evil spirits is the impact that it can have on our prayer life. If
we live in something other than an entirely mechanistic universe, if there
really is an ultimate reality who has revealed himself to us in the Lord Jesus
Christ, if hordes of evil spirits do exist who constantly scheme and attack us
seeking our destruction, then there is great reason to pray. God is there. He
hears, he understands, and he wants to help us survive in the context of
rampant supernatural hostility.
Perhaps the greatest
service that Frank Peretti has rendered to the church in his fictional accounts
This Present Darkness and Piercing the Darkness has been to lift
the veil hiding the unseen world. He startles us with his vivid and grotesque
depictions of the powers of darkness and forces us to consider afresh the real
and pervasive hostility of this evil spiritual domain. Not only do Peretti’s
heroes survive against this horrific backdrop of other-worldly evil, but they
accomplish many remarkable things for the kingdom of God. Why? Because they
pray. God hears and responds. One comes away from reading Peretti’s novels with
a renewed incentive to pray because, if he is anywhere close to the truth in
his fictional depictions, what else can one do but turn to God? God will fight
for his people.
The Christian life is
carried out in community, in dependence on other people. The apostle Paul
especially stressed this point through his analogy of the church as the body of
Christ. God has chosen to strengthen and build up individual Christians through
their relationships with other Christians, particularly when the church
assembles for worship and edification. God’s Spirit is active in different ways
in different people with the ultimate goal of strengthening the entire group
through what each individual member is divinely enabled to contribute. Active
involvement in the ministry of a local church is therefore vital to receiving
the enabling power of God to resist the attack of the forces of darkness.
Praying together with
other Christians is essential if we are to appropriate God’s power. As we saw
in the chapter on spiritual warfare, Paul regarded prayer as the essence of
putting on the armor of God. Although we often think of deploying the armor of
God in individualistic terms (that is, this is something I pray for myself in
my private times of prayer), Paul presented it in corporate terms (that is,
this is something we pray for other people while we are gathered together). We
are responsible for arming our fellow believers with the power of God.
In preaching Paul’s
“spiritual warfare” passage, I have sometimes entitled my message “Praying for
the Healthy.” My goal has been to guide the content of small group prayer into
prayers for each other, not just for those who are physically ill or who have
some sort of problem (though that is a very important part). I want people to
realize that Scripture teaches that we have a responsibility to prepare our
brothers and sisters—even in the seemingly “good times”—to face demonic assault
and come through unscathed. Prayers like:
Father, I pray for Tom. I ask that you will give him a
fresh glimpse of all the resources that are his in the Lord Jesus Christ. I
pray that you will strengthen him in his innermost being with the power that
your Spirit can supply in abundance. O Father, you are aware of the areas he is
most vulnerable to Satan’s attack. Strengthen Tom and protect him with your
grace to resist the devil’s solicitations to evil.
Father, you know Sheila’s desire to make the gospel known
at her workplace. We anticipate Satan’s rage at her plans to communicate this
message of deliverance and redemption. Impart to her boldness, just as you did
for the apostle Paul, that you can work through her to overcome the obstacles
that the evil one will place in her way.
Paul modeled such
prayers throughout his epistles, particularly in Ephesians, where he was
especially concerned about the matter of spiritual warfare. We will do well to
follow his example.[1]
---------------------------more
tomorrow------------------------
Join our “Victory over the Darkness”, “The Bondage
Breaker”, "Freedom in Christ" series of Discipleship Classes via the
mt4christ247 podcast!
at https://mt4christ247.podbean.com, You can also find it on Apple podcasts
(https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-mt4christ247s-podcast/id1551615154). The mt4christ247 podcast is also available
on Google Podcasts, Amazon Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartradio, and
Audible.com.
These teachings are also available on the
MT4Christ247 You Tube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTxjSNstREpuGWuL0bF3U7w/featured
Email me at mt4christ247@gmail.com to receive the class materials, share your progress, and
to be encouraged.
My wife, TammyLyn, also offers Christian
encouragement via her Facebook Group: Ask, Seek, Knock (https://www.facebook.com/groups/529047851449098 ) and her podcast Ask, Seek, and Knock on
Podbean (https://feed.podbean.com/tammalyn78/feed.xml)
Encouragement
for the Path of Christian Discipleship
[1]
Clinton E. Arnold, Powers of Darkness:
Principalities & Powers in Paul’s Letters (Downers Grove,
IL: IVP Academic: An Imprint of InterVarsity Press, 1992), 213–215.