2005-03-04
Good Morning Faithful Ones,
For the last two messages, the Holy Spirit has been directing me to write about revenge and grudge-holding. PHIL 4: 18-19 describes people who tenaciously hold on to grudges and allow them to govern both their thoughts and their behavior. “I have told you this many times before, and now I repeat it with tears: there are many whose lives make them enemies of Christ’s death on the cross. They are going to end up in hell, because their god is their bodily desires. They are proud of what they should be ashamed of, and they think only of things that belong to this world.” In a way I write this message as a prayer for those unhappy, destructive people in the unfailing hope that at least some of them can be brought to change their ways and believe that the goodness of Christ can come into their lives, leading them to put their grudges behind them and, where possible, restore broken relationships. Obviously, people living a lifestyle of sin brought Paul to tears, just as they are doing for me. Some of them belong to our own families or are friends about whom we care deeply.
Dr. Edward M. Smith, the author of Healing Life’s Hurts writes about the problem that comes us when there is a difference between our logical input (as from the Bible) and our experience. The problem is believing that misery can stop. Many of us know the Bible’s teaching well; we know what God wants us to do. But, our experience is different from what the Bible teaches, and so, a gap of unbelief persists either slowing our path toward eternal life or even preventing it. Remember the story from Secrets of the Vine by Pastor Bruce Wilkinson about the woman who met Pastor Bruce on one of the Greek islands? She came up to him and asked, “why can’t I produce spiritual fruit in my life when I’m trying so hard?” It took a couple of weeks for the pastor to figure out how to approach helping her with her problem. Then, he told her to see if she had any broken relationships in her life in which she had not attempted to restore. Sure enough, she had been holding a grudge against her own mother for some time. The pastor wisely told her to follow MT 5: 23-24, “So if you are about to offer your gift to God at the altar and there you remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar, go at once and make peace with your brother, and then come back and offer your gift to God.” Later, the woman came back to Pastor Bruce and told him that everything had changed. For the first time in many years, she made peace with her mother, and now she was able to serve the Lord effectively, producing good spiritual fruit for Him in her life.
Some grudge-holders are not the least bit in touch with what they are doing. But, the Lord is always there to help them, if they will only ask for this help. David writes in PS 27: 7-10, “Hear me, Lord, when I call to You! Be merciful and answer me! When You said, ‘Come worship Me,’ I answered, ‘I will come, Lord.’ Do not hide Yourself from me! Do not be angry with Me; do not turn Your servant away. You have been my Help; do not leave me, do not abandon me. O God, my Savior, my father and mother may abandon me, but the Lord will take care of me.” We all know that despite David’s past history of warfare, adultery with Bathsheba, and the murder of Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, God knew the truth that David’s heart was pliant and could be obedient. God not only didn’t abandon David, but David’s name was “written in the palms of His hands” [IS 49: 16] and He granted the eternal throne to David’s Descendant [2 SAM 7: 12-13; GA 3: 16].
The issue about gaps of unbelief in our hearts is a serious one. Often these gaps are covered up, so they are hard to find. And yet, in order to do our own part in God’s efforts to sanctify us, we must take the time to find these gaps, face whatever emotional pain they bring us, and own up to responsibility for our own sinful thoughts and actions. If we feel unequal to this task, we are not alone. But, there is something we can do about it. We can get on our knees and ask God for His help, remembering PS 37: 39, “The salvation of the righteous is from the Lord; He is their Refuge in the time of trouble.” PS 46: 1, “God is our Shelter and our Strength, always ready to help in time of trouble.” Then, we can rely on PHIL 4: 13, “I can do all things through Christ, Who strengthens me.” Remember that when we pray for something that is in keeping with God’s agenda, our prayers will be answered [JN 15: 7]. One last reminder to people struggling with grudge-holding and the taking of revenge is in EPH 4: 32, “Instead, be kind and tender-hearted to one another, and forgive one another, as God has forgiven you through Christ.” Then, we must wait for God to act and know that the patience we show in times like these will have a blessed payoff.
PRAYER: O Lord, we call upon you today to help us in the matter of grudge-holding and usurping Your right to take revenge [RO 12: 19] where You deem it appropriate. We should understand that people who live the lifestyle depicted in PHIL 4: 18-19, are miserable and unhappy. They do not enjoy the gifts of the Holy Spirit and Your other blessings in their lives. Rather than harboring anger toward them, we should feel sorry for them and pray for them as Christ directed us to in MT 5: 44-45a. Without Your help, we can’t uncover the hidden pockets of sin in our own lives, but with it, we can finally get rid of them. We are cowardly about facing the pain of some truths in our lives at times, but through our faith in Christ and invoking His help, we can overcome this. We ask You today to give us the power by Your Holy Spirit to restore broken relationships with others in our lives, to stop holding any grudges we might have against them, to withdraw entirely from taking revenge and to recognize the eternal value of faithful obedience to You in all areas of our lives. There are times when mending broken relationships in our lives opens opportunities to share the life-giving message of the Gospel. Help us to recognize those opportunities and to share Your word with sensitivity to the culture and needs of others. Without our strong faith in You and willingness to follow the direction of Your Spirit, we cannot do this. Help us to recognize our need to hold our tongues in some circumstances and give us the power to do this. Help us not to be led by our flesh, but instead, by Your Spirit. Help us to overcome temptation placed in our lives by the evil one to say and do hurtful things to get back at others who have provoked us. Most of all, we plead to You to help us remember the great sacrifice that Your Son made on the cross, so that we could enjoy Your presence in our lives, Your leadership, and our very salvation. We dedicate ourselves to complying to Your will, seeking it at every turn, and cooperating with Your efforts to sanctify us. You are an awesome God, Who richly deserves our praise and thanks. We confess our sins and offer You our praise and thanks eternally. In Christ’s name, we pray. Amen.
Today, I mentioned Christ’s words about loving our enemies. That, as He said in MT 5:43-48, will be the topic for next week’s message. In the meanwhile, we must be hard at work in looking for those hidden pockets of unbelief in our lives. Henry Blackaby in his course, “Experiencing God,” made a huge point when he expressed his seven realities. The last one really applies to what I’ve been writing here. “You come to know God by experience as you obey Him and He accomplishes His work through you.” We have been told in GA 5: 22-23 about the fruits of the Spirit. “But the Spirit produces love, joy , peace , patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, and self-control. There is no law against such things as these.” When we obey God, we are able to produce these fruits. We are also able to enable Him to carry out His purpose through us. We become His hands and feet, and He directs us to do His work. The Stephen Ministry, to which my husband, Peter, and I belong, calls this “being Jesus with skin on.” It’s an admirable goal to which all of us should strive to be “Jesus with skin on.” That is why it’s so important for us to remove the roadblocks to God being able to work through us-things like grudge-holding and seeking revenge. As for God, even one with a past like mine can know that when we remove all the blocks to God working through us, we make Him happy. The older I get, the more important I realize it is that I should do everything I can to please God and to fulfill His purposes for me. It is my hope that each of you feels the same way. EPH 1: 4-5 tells us that we were created for God’s purpose and His pleasure. One other thought occurs to me. We don’t know what is God’s cosmic purpose for each of us, but we do know there is one. For the Samaritan woman who met Christ at the well in JN 4, it was to spread the truth to her village and their descendants. For Abraham, it was to establish the Jewish people and a line out of which “a Shoot out of the stump of Jesse” [IS 11:1] shall come. Whatever God’s cosmic purpose for our lives is, we should understand that our present faithful obedience to God, our willingness to expunge sin and unbelief from our lives, is crucial to it. We should also remember that our God deserves the best from us.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn