Carothers Bringing Heaven Into Hell

1. Auflage 2016
ISBN: 978-0-943026-49-7
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 200 Seiten

Biblical perspectives for praising the Lord in every situation of our lives, telling what true praise is, what it consists of, and what conditions must be present in our lives for our praise to be considered true so that God may answer our prayers.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Carothers, Merlin

Leseproben

Chapter Three Three Way Forgiveness Steve lost his Dad in a car accident. A policeman who was an eyewitness reported that the other driver was entirely to blame - and came away without a scratch. Anger and grief settled deep in Steve’s heart. A year later Steve became a Christian but could not find a lasting peace. The grief over his father and bitterness against the man who had killed him preyed on his mind day and night. He begged God to take it away, but it only got worse. Someone gave Steve Prison to Praise, and he haltingly tried to praise God for the accident that took his father’s life. Now suddenly he could see that his grief and hatred were rooted in his unwillingness to forgive the other man. With eyes opened to his own sin, Steve asked forgiveness for his hatred and help to forgive. He wrote me, “It has been several months now, and I am actually growing to love the man who drove the other car. God loves him, and so should I. What a glorious peace I have found.” Praise opened the way to forgiveness in Steve’s heart, but had he refused to forgive, his praise would have remained mechanical and brought no fruit. An unforgiving heart cannot be a heart of praise. Forgiveness not only holds the key to our relationship with God, but also to our relationship with others. In fact, God has made one dependent on the other. Forgiveness is a three-way proposition. Jesus said, Your heavenly Father will forgive you if you forgive those who sin against you; but if you refuse to forgive them, He will not forgive you (Matt. 6:14-15). God forgives us immediately when we confess our sins to Him. That is His nature. But if we don’t go on to forgive others, we will suffer. Un-forgiveness will rob us of peace, joy, and health. God made us that way. He built it into us, and we have no control over it. A young woman came to me with a problem that threatened to ruin her marriage. She found it nearly impossible to respond in love to her husband. Instead, she felt resentment and fear at his touch. She loved her husband, and could not understand her own behavior. No matter how hard she tried, she could not change. As she talked, I began to get a picture of an extremely unhappy childhood. Her father had abused and beaten her repeatedly. When she tried to hide under the bed, he pulled her out by the hair to beat her some more. Fear and bitterness had festered in her heart for years, until she felt a repulsion towards all men, including her husband. In addition, she felt guilty for hating her own father, although she had repressed both her hatred and her guilt so that she seldom thought of it any more. The young lady was able to accept God’s forgiveness for her attitude of unforgiveness, and to understand that God forgave her father as well. When she was able to forgive her father, the fear and resentment towards her husband disappeared, and she was free to respond to his love. Often the root of our present family problems can be found in painful experiences of our childhood. Perhaps a difficult experience with a parent, a sister or brother still haunts us. Old wounds dictate our behavior and until they are healed, we continue to hurt those we most want to love. One man told how his suspicions and jealousy were about to drive his wife away. As a child he had burned with anger and shame over his mother’s promiscuity, and had never been able to forgive her. The unforgiving attitude towards his mother caused him to watch every move his wife made, expecting to discover that she was unfaithful. As soon as he was able to forgive his mother, the suspicions towards his wife faded away. Without realizing it, we can transpose our feelings from the past to our present relationships. With handicaps like that, no wonder many of us are having difficulties. Not only are we imprisoned by the unsettled accounts of the past, but so are the people around us. They may react to us because our behavior rubs their old wounds. We need to ask God, “Is there any unforgiveness in me, Lord, that is making me ill or making me unhappy or that is hurting my family?” We human beings can get ourselves into situations we think are unforgivable, but that simply isn’t true. There is no need to repress old memories or keep old wounds covered up, because the Bible declares, If the Son therefore shall make you free, you shall be free indeed (John 8:36 KJV). Jesus came to guarantee our forgiveness for everything we’ve ever done or thought of doing wrong, and to make it possible for us to forgive everything that anyone else has ever done or thought of doing against us. Our sins or the sins of others have no power to bind us when we are forgiven and forgiving. We can usually think of many reasons why we won’t forgive others. “How can I forgive when the people who hurt me don’t deserve to be forgiven?” It may be true they don’t deserve it - but we don’t deserve to be forgiven either, and God forgives us anyway. Never pay back evil for evil... wrote Paul. Don’t let evil get the upper hand but conquer evil by doing good (Rom. 12:17, 21). Holding on to unforgiveness is just another way of paying back evil for evil, and by our attitude we give evil the upper hand over us. The only way to conquer evil is to forgive. That is how God overcomes the evil in us. Forgive and God conquers the evil in us by forgiving us. When we forgive and love those who hurt us, evil loses its power over us. You may get hurt in your physical body if they hit you or torture you - Jesus didn’t promise that we would never suffer physically - but they can’t upset your peace and joy on the inside. In fact, I guarantee that if you respond to evil with real forgiveness and love, you will experience great joy. What happiness it is when others hate you and exclude you and insult you and smear your name because you are mine! When that happens, rejoice! Yes, leap for joy! (Luke 6:22-23). You can only leap for joy when you have forgiven those who hurt you. Jesus said, Listen, all of you. Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Pray for the happiness of those who curse you; implore God’s blessing on those who hurt you (Luke 6:27-28). To love your enemies you first have to forgive them. If that is difficult, try to think of it this way: God forgives even the worst offenders and the greater our guilt, the more we have reason to be grateful for His forgiveness. If someone has hurt me; the worse it is, the more he needs to be forgiven, and the greater is my opportunity to be like Christ and to forgive him. Maybe you don’t want that kind of opportunity to practice Christian love, but just think of it; until someone hurts you, you will never know the joy of forgiving! Sometimes we avoid the issue by saying, “Well, I would forgive that person if only he or she would ask me to forgive.” God’s forgiveness comes to us even before we ask Him. Jesus, hanging on the cross, said, Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing. The people who mocked Him and beat Him and crucified Him didn’t ask His forgiveness, or care if they ever got it. He forgave them anyway, because the Son of God could not do otherwise. We cannot do otherwise either, if we want to do God’s will. He wants us to forgive all those who have ever hurt us in our entire lives, whether or not they know what they did, or want our forgiveness. Not only does it help us to forgive. God has arranged it so that it also helps those we forgive - even if they are unaware that we’ve forgiven them. When we ask God, “Forgive them for what they did to me,” He does just that. He uses our forgiveness in their lives to begin freeing them from their bondage of guilt and draw them closer to Himself. Paul was in the crowd watching Stephen being stoned to death. So they stoned Stephen while he called upon God and said, Jesus, Lord, receive my spirit! Then, on his knees, he cried in ringing tones, Lord, forgive them for this sin. And with these words he fell into the sleep of death, while Saul gave silent assent to his execution (Acts 7:59-60; 8:1 Phillips). I am sure God was working in Paul’s heart that day, and Stephen’s words of forgiveness hastened that work. Our responsibility to forgive others is put to us plainly. Unless we forgive, we keep ourselves and those to whom we refuse forgiveness in bondage, blocking out God’s love. Bill, a prisoner, wrote to tell me how he had experienced God’s forgiveness. The very next day in the mess hall, he was confronted with his worst enemy. The two men had tried to kill each other, and for ten years, prison authorities had kept them separated. Their files were stamped with the warning never to put them within reach of each other. But now there had been a slip-up and they were staring at each other across the breakfast table. Bill’s first reaction was fear, but then the thought came, Praise Me for this, and he responded almost automatically, “Thank you, Lord, for letting me face Ron this morning.” Ron was calm as they talked. Bill told about the change Jesus Christ had brought into his life, and the two men parted as friends. In the middle of the night, Bill was awakened with the words ringing in his head, Forgive Ron! He said, “Lord, forgive Ron!” and felt peace and wonderful joy as he went back to sleep. The next morning he received word from...