“Ugh! He wrote “that” word.” Well it had to come up sooner or later. We can’t talk about God without it coming up, it’s Gods nature, like love. God is love, and He’s living inside of us who call on Jesus as Lord, so we are love as well. God is grace, giving us what we don’t deserve, like forgiveness. So we too are grace, giving forgiveness to those who don’t deserve it. We have so much more inside of ourselves that it will blow your mind if you ever sat down and thought about it. All the attributes of God, jam packed inside of us, waiting for us to use them to live this life. Wow!
It’s Friday morning, I’m drinking my 1st cup of coffee, and guess what? It’s still dreary outside lol. It was awesome that the sun came out on Wednesday where I live, it’s been awhile. It felt real good to get some natural vitamin D, and other good things. I got to meet my oncologist on Tuesday. I guess I’ll be seeing him a lot for the next 3 years. I’m glad he is a nice guy. Thank you Jesus! I have to get a PETscan first to find out what is going on with my lymph nodes. So another delay before treatment starts. I’m using the patience that God gives us. I was also using His peace that surpasses all understanding as the Dr filled me in on what will be happening over the next 7 weeks. What a beautiful gift that peace is. As you may remember from an earlier blog, I had trouble with anxiety. Medication helps but I can still get amped up sometimes. This peace that I felt was from meditation, meditation on His Word, especially Philippians 4:4-9. In those verses is the famous verse that Paul wrote to them: “Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”
“Well what does peace have to do with forgiveness?”you may ask. Everything! You cannot by any means try to forgive someone or yourself without the peace of God. It calms you and helps you to make sense of it all. In Colossians 3:15 again Paul tells us, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, “ And let the peace of Christ, to which you were called in one body(church), rule your hearts. And be thankful.” Not only does peace guard, but it rules our hearts. The word rule in the Greek language means umpire or arbitrator. This means that the peace of Christ is the supreme authority over our thoughts and actions, guiding us to make the right choices to bring peace and harmony. So yeah, peace has a lot to do with forgiveness. The ultimate ending is overcoming ourselves to bring harmony and unity into a situation.
Meditating on His words brings you to this place of understanding, and living out what you are learning. Feelings are a gift from God but they shouldn’t rule us. They just get us into a mess. Reading the letters of Paul, Peter, and John are extremely important to one’s growth in Christ. At this point I’m going to jump back into my testimony, because I was getting ready to learn all of this.
Early into my life with Christ, I was under a mentor’s guidance, who led me to forgive the bullies from my past through prayer. This was a hard thing for me to do because I wanted revenge still after all these years. I accepted Gods forgiveness, but wasn’t quite ready to share that with anyone else. I had no peace about it because I hadn’t learned about it yet. I didn’t know what Paul wrote in Romans about vengeance being His, not ours. I was studying the life of Jesus so I could portray Him as best as I could. It was years later that I discovered the truths of the book of Romans, and there’s a whole lot of them. One can never exhaust it completely because when you think you have done so, there’s another truth that the Holy Spirit will reveal to you.
Romans chapter 12 verses 9-21 will teach you how to live, serve, bless others, especially those who persecute you, live at peace with those you would rather not extend peace to, and revenge. We are to overcome evil with good, love our enemies (a recap of the words of Jesus), and by doing so it will bring conviction upon them and quite possibly bring them to the saving grace of salvation, which is Gods ultimate reason for us to act like Him, for He doesn’t want anyone to not get a chance to turn to Him.
The time I really learned all of this was when my 2nd wife left me for her high school sweetheart. The year was 2006. This is after I took a pastoral job at a new church in ’01. That was after I relapsed after the plays were over because I thought she was cheating on me then with someone who was supposed to be my friend. Turns out he was very toxic for me. An older brother in Christ who continually led me down the wrong path that I was too naive to recognize back then. The fact that I was fine when he moved away and enjoyed 10 years of sobriety should have told me something when he came back to town and I went back to my old ways. Be careful of those who call themselves Christian’s and take advantage of Gods grace. Living a life with God and the world. It doesn’t work. Just do your best to live at peace with them, but don’t get involved with them.
I got back on the “wagon” as they say, and had 4 good years, or so I thought. We worked and served great together, even raised our 3 children well, but we drifted. To busy. By ‘05 we were headed for divorce( 2 back to back hurricanes didn’t help either). I was blaming myself and didn’t know what was happening behind the scenes. After a nine day fast, only drinking water, I got back in line with the Lord. I had drifted off the path He had for me. He forgave me and with that renewed strength I was able to get through the divorce, and becoming a single dad(my two youngest children) with 2 jobs. But alas, I was having trouble forgiving her, and him.
It took a couple of years, but I did eventually forgive them both. During that time we got together with my oldest daughter during the holidays and birthdays. It was rough and very humiliating, but I loved my kids that much. I had to step down from ministry(can’t be in ministry when your family is in disarray), and focus on getting myself back on track mentally. I spent early mornings with the Bible and Jesus, reading and comprehending what I was reading. Putting it into action I slowly began to release my emotions and put them in their place. I fixed my eyes on Jesus, the one who gave me the faith to trust Him. I forgave them both and had peace. We get along today, and I still pray for them to be blessed (which they are, at least monetarily). And the wonderful thing about it is that I don’t have any more problems forgiving people. It’s pretty much automatic. No thoughts of revenge. Just grace, mercy, and peace that rules my heart.
I also went back in time and truly forgave my best friend and those who made my life miserable. Some are my facebook friends. I can think of them without animosity. But not all was hunky dory. Rejection came roaring back and blindsided me. Our enemy(satan) never rests. Thank God for Philippians 1:6, “…that He who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”(His second coming) God gives us a break and tells us that our transformation will be until we leave this earth. So if something comes up on you that you thought was taken care of, it’s okay, it may have not been properly dealt with before. Through prayer, petition with thanksgiving you can overcome all things.
Sorry this was a bit long lol. Forgiveness is a large subject and I only touched on it a little. Everyone is going to go through different aspects of forgiveness. Some are not so tough, and some will be outrageously tough. Just remember who’s inside you, strengthening you to be able to do what you in yourself cannot do. Also remember how much it cost Jesus to forgive you and that we should forgive others by laying down our feelings and nailing self to the cross.
I’ll pick up my testimony next time and let you know how I made out with that dumb ole rejection. Until then, Happy Weekend folks! May God bless you and keep you, and may His face shine upon you. ❤️
The Way, Truth, and Life 