Forgiveness
Forgiveness
Offenses will Come
Have you ever been offended?
- What offenses were of ignorance?
- What offenses were deliberate?
- What offenses have you held on to?
- What was your response to those who offended you?
Life is 10% of what happens to you and 90% of how you respond to it.
Psychological and Physiological Effects of Unforgiveness
Unforgiveness effects your mental health. Adverse conditions such as anxiety, depression, paranoia, and even psychiatric disorders can be linked to unforgiveness. Holding a grudge affects you physiologically by increasing stressing agents that make you more vulnerable to stroke, heart attack, a lower immune system and even aging. Forgiveness Improves Mental and Physical Health
Forgiveness Myths
Myth 1 – Forgiveness is letting go and walking away.
No, it’s more than that. It’s offering the offender a gift. The gift of compassion, understanding or empathy. These gifts initiate healing in both the offender and the offended.
For example, there’s a passage in the scriptures that reads, “…do not avenge yourselves… ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay saith the Lord.” Therefore if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him drink. In doing so, you will heap coals of fire on his head” (Romans 12:19).
Initially, I was taught ‘heaping coals of fire’ on your enemy’s head meant to be kind to your enemies and that will ensure God will take vengeance on them. However, I’ve since come to understand this ancient saying to mean when a fire goes out at a neighbor’s house, friend or foe, a person would get burning coals from their own fire, put them in a bucket and give them to his neighbor so they could restart their fire for warmth and cook their food. This is an act of kindness not vengeance even if the neighbor had done them wrong.
Myth 2 – Forgiveness means reconciliation.
Not necessarily, if your offender has the potential of continuing to be physically or emotionally abusive. While it is advisable to forgive, it is not advisable to place yourself in a precarious situation that more than likely lends itself to repeating than not.
Jesus forgave those who succeeded in having him crucified for he said “Father forgive them for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). He also gave them the gift of empathy, adding they had done what they did out of ignorance. The forgiver is at his or her best when he or she can put themselves in the shoes of the offender and see the offenders point of view. Only then will there be understanding, grace extended then pardon.
Scriptures according to MarilynRuth
Don’t be tryin’ to strut your stuff in church like you all that and you have unforgiveness in your heart. I don’t want to hear it (God shows the Hand). Fix it, then serve Me! Matthew 5:23-24
You ain’t got no business dissin’ those who don’t like you ‘cause you ain’t got your stuff all together neither. You need to love them anyway ‘cause somebody is sho’ ‘nuff having a hard time tryin’ to love you! Matthew 5:44-48
Somebody up in yo’ face? Don’t let your ugly come out! Do the right thing…offer them a mint! In other words, let the insult roll off your back and do not bother to retaliate—maintain your dignity, your self-respect, your poise. (I didn’t say it would be easy, just saying.) Matthew 5:39
Lord Jesus, how many times do I forgive these knuckleheads? Jesus replies, you can stop at the exact number I stopped forgiving you. Bam! Matthew 18:21 22
Stay prayed up. For in prayer you’ll find God. In God there is love. And love pays all debts. 1 Peter 4:7-8
The Story of the Two Besties
Two friends were walking through the desert. During some point of the journey, they had an argument and one friend slapped the other in the face. The one who got slapped was hurt, but without saying anything, wrote in the sand, “Today my best friend slapped me in the face.”
They continued walking together until they came upon an oasis where they both decided to bathe to cool off. The one that had been slapped plunged in first and suddenly realized there was quicksand beneath the surface of the water. The friend standing on solid ground quickly extended a stick and pulled the friend to safety. After the friend recovered from the near-death experience, he stooped down and picked up a stone and wrote, “Today my best friend saved my life.”
The best friend who had both slapped and saved his best friend asked, “after I hurt you, you wrote in the sand, and now you write on a stone, why?” The friend replied, “when someone hurts us we should write it down in sand where winds of forgiveness can erase it away. But when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone where no wind can ever erase it.”
Learn to write hurts in sand,
carve kindnesses in stone.
When Love becomes Bigger than You
I Corinthians 13
If I could speak in any language in heaven or on earth but didn’t love others, I would only be making meaningless noise like a clanging cymbal. If I knew all the mysteries of the future and knew everything about everything, but didn’t love others, what good would I be? And if I had the gift of faith so that I could speak to a mountain and make it move, without love I would be no good to anybody. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would be of no value whatsoever.
Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Love lasts forever…
Love and Forgiveness: The John Griffith Story
The story about John Griffith is a true story that takes place in Oklahoma in the 1920’s. After viewing the clip, you’ll never forget the huge task of forgiveness John Griffith had to face after he gave an even greater gift of love.
Love and Forgiveness: The Nate Saint Story
Another true story. Nate Saint, a pilot and four other missionaries Jim Elliott, Ed McCully, Roger Youderian, and Pete Fleming try to save a savage Ecuadorian tribe, the Waodanis. The Shell Oil Company had approached the the government about this savage tribe who were killing their workers. Before the government took action, these five missionaries sought to befriend the tribe thereby showing they were not savages and thus save their lives. Their story is re-enacted in the movie “End of the Spear”, a story of love and forgiveness.
Stone or Sand?
I started out with this question. Have you ever been offended?
Then I asked,
- What offenses were of ignorance?
- What offenses were deliberate?
The real answer is,
…..it doesn’t matter if offenses were done in ignorance or intentional.
What matters is whether you,
- Record them on stone or in sand and,
- Leave a gift of compassion, empathy, understanding and love.
Amazing Grace
Amazing Grace shall always be my song of praise
For it was Grace that bought my liberty
I’ll never know just why Christ came to love me so
He looked beyond my faults and saw my need.
I shall forever lift my eyes to Calvary
To view the Cross where Jesus died for me
How marvelous the Grace that caught my falling soul
He looked beyond my faults and saw my need.
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