Defect Replacement Program
Tonight was a very encouraging night for me. I have been really battling with discouragement lately. Thursday nights always seem to end very well. I was at the Celebrate Recovery meeting, and I was blessed with the opportunity to share a message on Forgiveness. Specifically 3 different area's of Forgiveness.
1) Accepting the Forgiveness from God, as demonstrated by Christ's work on the Cross. This is the 1st crucial part. And if we don't get this part, we are stuck. And if God didn't offer this forgiveness to us, heaven would be empty! Think about that... if there was not a sacrifice, if there was not blood shed for us by means of Jesus Christ, who paid the price for us.. we would be hopeless and doomed to live a life of nothingness. Praise the Lord!
2) Forgiving others... especially who have hurt us in some way. Another big one... but a tough one. I consider myself a very good resentment manager. I have a filing system in my head where I stash away all the little things people have said and done that have hurt me... I am constantly trying to throw out the files! It can be tough, when you think you have let something go you have against someone... then you run into them at church or at the store... and you get that knot in your gut, and you quickly pretend like you are occupied doing something, so you don't have to make eye contact with them.... that means you didn't let it go. You may have with one hand... but your other hand has white knuckles because you are holding on to it so tight! When we forgive others who have hurt us... we are then truly free. I can't afford to give someone free rent in my head.... it just makes me tired and bitter. We must forgive... even when it hurts.
3) We must forgive ourselves.... "wait a minute! I can accept what Christ did... and I can forgive others.. but you don't know all the bad things I have done!" Well Christ does... and he for them ALL. "It is finished!" (John 19:30). Would you trust a dentist with horrible, rotten teethe and nasty dragon breath to do a root canal on you? No! Then how can you forgive others if you haven't forgiven yourself? Start at home... look in the mirror. I think this is where I fell short for so long.. I didn't get it. I thought I forgave and forgot, but it was superficial... :surface grace". I hadn't worked out my own identity in Christ. Once I grasped His forgiveness towards me... and I was able to be glad for who I was and forgave myself as He did... THEN I was able to forgive others.
Jeremiah said it best: "You can't heal a wound by saying it is not there" 6:14. If you slammed your thump in your car door (again) and said to yourself "that didn't really happen... it isn't really turning blue" it wouldn't help you heal. So we must come to God with desperate abandonment... and let Him heal out hurts.
As I drove a friend home after the meeting, we had a good conversation about forgiveness. God gave me this "A-ha" moment. When we come to Christ, and we accept what He did for us, we are saved.. by His grace and our faith. He will then reveal to us... through his Word and his servants who teach us His Word... the area's of our life we must let go of. Our defects that need to be thrown in the fire. Lust, dishonesty, anger.. the list goes on. But... here is the epiphany! God will replace the defect in our character, with a good character trait! So, anger & bitterness are replaced by forgiveness! But we can swap... we can slip back into bitterness again... but try to be angry and forgive someone at the same time.... it aint possible! It would be funny to see... but it is God's Defect Replacement program. But we must ALLOW HIM to point the things out... then like on garbage day... we must bring the crap to the curb of our life... where God will pick it up and it will be recycled.
So as you chug along in this life... and God reveals an area that is getting in the way of your relationship with Him... ask God to replace it.
Trudging the road to a happy destiny... Dan
1) Accepting the Forgiveness from God, as demonstrated by Christ's work on the Cross. This is the 1st crucial part. And if we don't get this part, we are stuck. And if God didn't offer this forgiveness to us, heaven would be empty! Think about that... if there was not a sacrifice, if there was not blood shed for us by means of Jesus Christ, who paid the price for us.. we would be hopeless and doomed to live a life of nothingness. Praise the Lord!
2) Forgiving others... especially who have hurt us in some way. Another big one... but a tough one. I consider myself a very good resentment manager. I have a filing system in my head where I stash away all the little things people have said and done that have hurt me... I am constantly trying to throw out the files! It can be tough, when you think you have let something go you have against someone... then you run into them at church or at the store... and you get that knot in your gut, and you quickly pretend like you are occupied doing something, so you don't have to make eye contact with them.... that means you didn't let it go. You may have with one hand... but your other hand has white knuckles because you are holding on to it so tight! When we forgive others who have hurt us... we are then truly free. I can't afford to give someone free rent in my head.... it just makes me tired and bitter. We must forgive... even when it hurts.
3) We must forgive ourselves.... "wait a minute! I can accept what Christ did... and I can forgive others.. but you don't know all the bad things I have done!" Well Christ does... and he for them ALL. "It is finished!" (John 19:30). Would you trust a dentist with horrible, rotten teethe and nasty dragon breath to do a root canal on you? No! Then how can you forgive others if you haven't forgiven yourself? Start at home... look in the mirror. I think this is where I fell short for so long.. I didn't get it. I thought I forgave and forgot, but it was superficial... :surface grace". I hadn't worked out my own identity in Christ. Once I grasped His forgiveness towards me... and I was able to be glad for who I was and forgave myself as He did... THEN I was able to forgive others.
Jeremiah said it best: "You can't heal a wound by saying it is not there" 6:14. If you slammed your thump in your car door (again) and said to yourself "that didn't really happen... it isn't really turning blue" it wouldn't help you heal. So we must come to God with desperate abandonment... and let Him heal out hurts.
As I drove a friend home after the meeting, we had a good conversation about forgiveness. God gave me this "A-ha" moment. When we come to Christ, and we accept what He did for us, we are saved.. by His grace and our faith. He will then reveal to us... through his Word and his servants who teach us His Word... the area's of our life we must let go of. Our defects that need to be thrown in the fire. Lust, dishonesty, anger.. the list goes on. But... here is the epiphany! God will replace the defect in our character, with a good character trait! So, anger & bitterness are replaced by forgiveness! But we can swap... we can slip back into bitterness again... but try to be angry and forgive someone at the same time.... it aint possible! It would be funny to see... but it is God's Defect Replacement program. But we must ALLOW HIM to point the things out... then like on garbage day... we must bring the crap to the curb of our life... where God will pick it up and it will be recycled.
So as you chug along in this life... and God reveals an area that is getting in the way of your relationship with Him... ask God to replace it.
Trudging the road to a happy destiny... Dan
posted by Dan at 11:00 PM
1 Comments:
I think it's awesome that you started this blog!
I hope to check it often so you'd better keep it good and keep it up:)
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