Grace - Wrapping the Gift of Forgiveness

2 Corinthians 12: 8-9 For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me.
And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

Forgiving the person or persons who hurt us deeply is hard work - it is a process and takes time. I say this from personal experience. Some time ago I wrote a blog post titled Forgiving the Hard Stuff, Justice and Healing. I would like to encourage everyone to read it - link to the post here - http://sharingthefaith-northernsparrow.blogspot.ca/2012/06/forgiveness.html
If you are like me and have been working forgiveness through your mind and focusing on getting it to completion, you will agree that as much as you want forgiveness toward that person to be complete, you feel inadequate in getting it done and in the depths of your heart you wonder if there is more "forgiving" to do in order to feel that completeness in your heart.
Since I have been in process of forgiving for a few years now, and I really want it to be complete, God has been gracious to me and revealed to me that I need His grace to do the rest of the work in my heart. I have come a long way but I am weak - He is my Strength and He assures me that I can leave it to Him to complete the work of forgiving my offender in my heart and  I cannot reach that point without His intervention of grace in my heart. With His grace He covers my weakness with His Strength. Then in Him  and through Him I am made complete. 
In my mind I see giving forgiveness as giving a gift to a person. I want to give the gift ( with my whole heart I want to give this person this gift) but the gift is not ready to give until it is wrapped in beautiful gift wrap. Grace is that gift wrap which provides completeness to the gift of extending forgiveness.
After the Lord had revealed this lesson in grace to me, He affirmed it to me again through the teaching of one of my radio Bible teachers. I praise the Lord for this! The radio Bible teacher said that sometimes the sin done against us by our friend or whoever is so huge that forgiveness is not humanly possible. The pain from a deep hurt can resemble post traumatic stress disorder with similiar symptoms ( nightmares, flashbacks, anxiety, sadness, fear, loneliness). It is at such a time that we need Jesus to help us and He will! Jesus experienced extreme betrayal and from the cross and in Luke 23: 34 it says Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.  When the pain is so huge, Jesus comes and takes over and carries the pain for us. He does the work of forgiveness through me in a miraculous way. Every time the pain surfaces and reoccurs in our heart we must turn to the Lord in prayer and again and again leave it with Him there. His Grace is sufficient for me.
1 Corinthians 12:9 And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.
It is so important to be able to forgive completely since to live with these burdens of pain and hurt in our hearts are dangerous to our own health. Jesus wants to take all of our burdens and anxieties and replace it with His peace. He is the Healer of our broken hearts. In Luke 4:18  Jesus says - he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives,
Lets remember to constantly bring our cares to the Lord in prayer.
Phillipians 4:6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;

Divorce - Sunday Sermon Review

Sunday Sermon Review - September 30, 2012
( from my home church that I attend regularly)

Matthew 15: 4-6 And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

Topic - Divorce
Text - Matthew 19:1-13 entire text posted at the bottom of this post.

Today Pastor Ben preached at our church. Continuing on in our Matthew series, he spoke on the topic of divorce. Here is some of what he said:

Divorce causes a lot of pain. We are all affected by the divorce of a couple we know. Some of you may be divorced.
The problem of divorce is not new nor only a modern day problem.
God's ideal plan for marriage from the beginning of creation is seen in the first couple of chapters of Genesis. God created male and female - joined them together to become one under God. This was God's original plan and he ordained it from the start before sin entered the world.

What does it mean to become one?
It does not mean doing everything together with your spouse or agreeing with him/her all the time. God created each individual unique and wants you to be you.
Becoming one means - you do not put your own needs ahead of those of your spouse? The question is not - What do I want to do today but rather "What would my spouse like to do?"
It means taking on the hopes and dreams of your spouse.
It means being joined together and commited to face life together.
It means keeping your wedding vows - For richer and poorer, in sickness and in health , in better times and in worser times, forsaking all others and being faithful to you alone till death separates the marriage.
God is the One who binds us together with our spouse in our marriage.
Becoming one means to become intimate in all aspects of life - emotional, physical and spiritual
You share your deepest and darkest secrets with your spouse.
You are commited to facing life together till the end.

The context of this passage is that the Pharisees are trying to trap Jesus with the question on divorce - Matthew 19: 3 The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?
The Pharisees remind Jesus that Moses allowed a written divorcement - Verse 7 Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away?
The answer is found in verse 8 He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.
Due to the hardness of people's hearts - Pastor Ben stressed the importance of have a soft and forgiving heart in order to become one with your spouse in your marriage.  Failure in marriage is a result of sin and hardheartedness.
Pastor Ben took time to point out that singleness is also an option that is blessed by God just as marriage is a blessed option in life.
Pastor Ben now went on to Verse 9 in the passage where it says:  And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.
Notes from me  - As Pastor Ben was trying to explain this verse there seemed to be a barrier that prevented him from being clear in his explaination of this verse. Perhaps it is due to the fact that so many people are hurting from a broken marriage.
 Personally I think Jesus is very clear in Verse 9 and Jesus says here that there is one condition in which divorce is an option and that is if there is fornication of any kind within the marriage. Fornication here refers to sexual immorality - that is  any sexual activity outside the bond of the husband and wife togetherness. So this includes any kind of sexual immorality - premarital sex, extramarital sex, prostitution, homosexuality, pornography and beastiality etc.
According to the notes in my Bible, the part of verse 9   and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery. refers to a man who marries a woman who has been divorced because of immorality in her own body. So basically any person who becomes divorced due to immorality in his or her own life is not to be married again to another person at all.

Matthew 19: 1-13 And it came to pass, that when Jesus had finished these sayings, he departed from Galilee, and came into the coasts of Judaea beyond Jordan;
² And great multitudes followed him; and he healed them there.
³ The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?
⁴ And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,
⁵ And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?
⁶ Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
⁷ They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away?
⁸ He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.
⁹ And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.
¹⁰ His disciples say unto him, If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry.
¹¹ But he said unto them, All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given.
¹² For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.
¹³ Then were there brought unto him little children, that he should put his hands on them, and pray: and the disciples rebuked them.

Forgiveness - Sunday Sermon

Sunday Sermon Review September 23,2012
(from my home church that I attend regularly)
How Many Times Should I Forgive?
( I would like to encourage everyone reading this to also check out my blogpost that I wrote June 28 titled "Forgiving the hard stuff, Justice and Healing".) link here

 http://sharingthefaith-northernsparrow.blogspot.ca/2012/06/forgiveness.html

The service began with the singing of several newer songs and also  the song When I Survery the Wondrous Cross / O the Wonderful Cross.
We are continuing on in our book of Matthew series. The sermon today was based on Matthew 18: 21-35.
The youth pastor  - Kellin  was our speaker today.
Kellin began his message with sharing his excitement of worshipping together this morning. He did a recap of the last couple of Sundays of how we come to the Lord as a child with childlike faith. And confronting a fellow believer is done as a rescue mission with the goal being restoration.
This all ties in with today's message of forgiveness.

Here is more of what Pastor Kellin preached on forgiveness:
Forgiveness is hard.
In the Scripture passage, Peter comes to Jesus with the question -  Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Kellin pointed out that in context this is referring to the people within our closest circles of relationships.  People closest to us will hurt us the most when they sin against us. We need to be forgiving toward everyone inside and outside of our circles.
Peter thought that 7 was the perfect holy number so 7 times would surely be sufficient. Jesus responds  Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.
Jesus was teaching us not to take revenge but rather forgive whenever someone wrongs us time and time again. Extending forgiveness is hard. Jesus went to the cross and paid our debt there that we never could pay ourselves.
Continuing on in the passage, Kellin now explained the depth of the debt the servant owed to his master Matthew 18:24-27 And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, which owed him ten thousand talents.
 But forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made.
  The servant therefore fell down, and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all.
  Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt.
How much is 10,000 talents in today's money? - 1 talent equals 15 years of wages so 10,000 talents = 150,000 years of wages. That would be the equivalent of $6 Billion in todays world. So we see it was an unpayable amount of debt. The Master cancelled this amount of debt that his servant owed him.
Now this man ( whose 6 billion dollar ) debt has been cancelled goes out and sees his fellow servant who owes him Verse 28 But the same servant went out, and found one of his fellowservants, which owed him an hundred pence: This would equal about 1/2 year of wages so about $16,000. This is a debt that actually could be paid.  Though the first man had been forgiven a huge debt he was unable to forgive his fellowman a much smaller debt and threw the man in prison. Verse 30 - 35  And he would not: but went and cast him into prison, till he should pay the debt.  So when his fellowservants saw what was done, they were very sorry, and came and told unto their lord all that was done.  Then his lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me:  Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee? And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.
Application:
When we cannot forgive it leaves people questioning our Christianity.
Forgiveness cost us. By choosing to forgive we take revenge off the table.
Forgiveness does not mean we forget nor does it mean that the wrong we have suffered it not serious or real. It also does not mean that there are no consequences to the one who has offended us and whom we are now forgiving.
We find freedom when we let them off "our hook." We give it over to God and allow Him to deal with the situation.
Scars will remain. Forgiving is a process, a journey. It is not instantaneous but rather a continual laying it down before the Lord. The pain and hurt can and will resurface. Continually give your hurt feelings over to God. We do not want to carry the burden of our hurt anymore.
We have all been forgiven a magnitude of debt. Christ paid the debt that we could never pay.
Be merciful as your Heavenly Father is merciful.
The service closed with the Lord's Prayer.

The closing song was "Amazing Grace - my Chains are gone".
 

Forgiving the hard stuff - Justice and Healing

Proverbs 15:13  A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance: but by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken.

The topic of forgiveness probably raises more questions than answers. There are two sides to the coin of forgiveness. That is, on one side we need to be forgiven of  the wrongs that we have done and on the other side is that we need to forgive those who have done wrong to us. Jesus commanded us to forgive as He has forgiven us. Matthew 6: 14-15 says  For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:  But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. In this post I want to focus on forgiving others.

What is forgiveness really and what does it look like? If we were to honestly share about life, we would probably all say that we have been able to forgive many people for small offenses and hurts over the years and we do not even think about those issues any more. BUT most likely many of us also have had one or more big things that have happened to us, some one has seriously hurt, betrayed and offended us, a "dealbreaker" type of offense, and that is the where the question of forgiveness becomes the issue. As much as we would like to be able to live life again as if this event had never happened, we cannot and because we know we will never be able to entirely get beyond it, we feel like forgiveness is incomplete.
 
Sometimes when you watch the news and some terrible tradegy has occured, you will hear the victim's family say - "we want justice". It is within all of us to want justice to happen - " do the crime, do the time" is how we feel. But we also know that in many cases, even though a criminal is put behind bars for life, the hearts of the victims and the victim's family remain broken and in the case where a death has occured , the life of that loved one is gone and cannot be restored no matter how many years the criminal spends behind bars. Even with a verbal apology or a financial settlement, the heart remains sad and broken. So what is the answer? Part of the answer is that God, the character of God demands justice.  As human beings, we are created in the image of God and that is part of why we want justice. Even a small child knows when "it's not fair!"  So God  is a God of justice and we can see what that justice required in that Jesus the only begotten Son of God ( the second part of the Trinity ) had to die to pay for our sin in order to redeem us to the Father.  God required that kind of a sacrifice. We see it in Hebrews 9: 22 And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.

I have heard many sermons preached on forgiveness and I believe that it has helped me to get a better understanding of what forgiveness looks like.
 First of all, it does not mean that we forget. Even God doesn't forget - He simply chooses not to remember. To place the expectation on yourself that when you forget, then you will have forgiven is just not going to work. If a life changing betrayal and offense has occured, forgetting is not about to happen.

Secondly, Time will not heal the wound that has been created. To just think that we can stuff our problems in the closet or under the rug is not going to work. I saw this happen to a friend who was abused as a child. Years later when she got the courage to confront the man who abused her, he denied all wrong doing. Nothing was done to solve the brokenness and the whole issue got stuffed away again. We wonder what the final outcome of such will be when God's books are finally opened. Sometimes we may also think that if we  busy our minds with all sorts of pleasures and do fun stuff and just not think about the problem any more, that somehow that equals forgiveness. I can tell you that also does not work either.

Thirdly, forgiveness does not mean that we are okay with what happened or that we are no longer sad or heartbroken about what happened. Nor does it mean that we are willing to allow the person who hurt us to hurt us again. It is okay to put up some boundaries and defenses in order to protect ourselves from such an offense happening again. In the old Testament in the story of Joseph, we see how he tested his brothers to see if they had changed and if they were truly repentant before he would allow his heart to be touched by them again.

 Fourthly, Forgiveness also does not mean that there should be no legal consequences for criminal actions. God has put the authorities in place for the purpose of punishing criminals. The problem is that what God counts as a sin and wrong doing is often not seen as a criminal offense in the justice system of our country. An example would be drunkenness, abortion or the breaking of the marriage covenant through an affair etc.

Fifth,  there is no point in waiting for the person who offended you come to make things right - to start treating you better or to apologize in such a way that it seems sincere enough that you feel better. The offender is not capable of realizing the degree of hurt that he/she has afflicted on you. The offense or betrayal that has occured is bigger than words. It will take consistant heartfelt restoration work on the part of the offender for you to ever begin to trust again and to start feeling better.  We know from the story of Zacchaeus that he offered to pay back 4 times what he had stolen from people. In Luke 19:8 Zacchaeus says - if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold.

 If something life changing has occured, only God's Hand can heal.
I believe forgiveness is a decision that I make. A decision  that I personally will not punish the person who betrayed or offended me nor will I pay him/her back for what was done.  I will leave all that to God.  Vengeance is mine says the Lord, I will repay. I decide that I will allow God to be in control of the justice part of what has happened. I come to the realization that it is not my place to do what God says is His part to play. I decide that I will choose to treat that person with kindness knowing that it is to God that account must be given. God is the only One who truely knows all the details of the situation. He is a God of holiness and righteousness and He alone knows what is just, right and fair. With my limited understanding, I am not able to determine the appropriate consequences to make a just and fair call. To get to this place in one's heart after a serious hurt has occured is a process and it takes time to work these thoughts through our minds and get God's perspective on the situation. It is very freeing to realize that God will deal with the persons who hurt us. God will do it in His own time. We do not know if it will happen here on the earth or if it will have eternal consequences but we leave that determination entirely in God's control. We must entrust ourselves to Him and believe that He is faithful to do what His Word declares.
Romans 12: 18-20 is a very important passage to remember:
¹⁸ If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.
¹⁹ Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.
²⁰ Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.

Once we have come to the realization, that God will do the justice part, then we can begin to focus on HEALING. The Lord Jesus is the healer of our broken hearts. Psalm 147:3  He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds. He will fill the emptyness with His love and care. The more we are hurting and reaching out to Him, the more He is reaching down to meet our needs. In His love, He is longing to be involved in our healing.  Daily, moment by moment, we can keep bringing our brokenness before Him and the healing we experience in this way is a direct miracle from the Hand of God!  In Luke 4:18, Jesus says   The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised

It seems to me that many times the Christian community and churches will put a huge focus on restoring the person who has commited the offense and will leave the victims to suffer and get through their brokenness more or less on their own. Somehow they think that if the offender ( whether it be through alcholism, drugs, sexual problems, money issues etc)  they think that if the offender just doesn't offend again, then the problems have been dealt with. I do not agree with this. The hurts that have occured to the victims and other family members is huge and much more compassion needs to be displayed towards the victims and family members.

There is so much more that could be written regarding forgiveness. If anyone reading this has a good insight to add or a comment, please feel free to leave your comments. May God's healing touch be real in your life as you experience the healing touch of the Master's Hand!  For further study on forgiveness, I recommend the teaching by James MacDonald from Walk in the Word ministries.