Laying Down The Weapons of Unforgiveness Purity 830

To see today's photo, go to mt4christ.org or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter. Good morning. Today's photo of a hump of a pine tree silhouette in the light of a fiery sunset sky comes to us from a friend who captured this scene presumably near their home in Greenville, New York, and shared it on social media back on August 13th. They also shared the following thoughts. They wrote, uh, one of the hardest things to purge is unforgiveness. We're tempted to think that unforgiveness gives us power, when in reality it keeps us a victim. Yet we keep clinging to our unforgiveness, convinced that doing so is fair. Well, it's Wednesday, and I thought my friend's tree was enough of a visual representation of Hump Day. For Wednesday, but I failed to remember their comments about unforgiveness, which I feel are both accurate and somewhat timely. Last night I kicked off another Freedom in Christ course series of meetings on, on Zoom and did my best to encourage the participants to be diligent in following the course to the end, to go to grow closer to God in their faith and possibly share what they learn from the course with others. As my Facebook friend pointed out in their post, unforgiveness is one of the hardest things to purge, but I know from my experience that it is not impossible to be set free from. The Freedom in Christ course, uh, and the Steps to Freedom in Christ specifically address unforgiveness by encouraging the participant to forgive from the heart. The bitterness and grudges from unforgiveness can make people feel powerful because they give the victim with an unforgiving heart the weapons of hate and rejection. I don't forgive you. I hate you. I reject you. You can't be a part of my life, and I won't be weak by forgetting about it or by forgiving you and allowing you to have peace with me. That's a— that's an extreme case of unforgiveness, of course, but these feelings of bitterness can even play a part in our quote-unquote reconciled relationships. And the only thing that is required for these weapons of bitterness to be wielded by the victim of unforgiveness is offense. Have you ever been in a relationship with someone who would bring up all the things you've done wrong to them the minute you have a disagreement? Uh, that's not forgiving from the heart. But our society and modern culture, uh, stokes grudges and selfishness. Unforgiveness is, uh, is a coping mechanism and a mechanism of control. Unforgiveness soothes our hurting heart with bitterness, which is poison, but because of the sense of power or control it gives people, people feel justified in holding on to it. The world would tell you to never forgive, that forgiveness is for the weak. The world raises the bar, not only, and not only commends unforgiveness, It would encourage seeking revenge. Don't get mad, get even. But God's way isn't that way. When Jesus was asked to teach his disciples to pray, his prayer included a petition to be forgiven by God, but it also indicates that we would forgive too. Matthew 6:12 tells us, "And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." The Apostle Paul, in writing to the churches, taught that forgiving is what Christians do. In Ephesians 4:32, he wrote, "And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ forgave you." And in that encouragement, Paul tells us why we should forgive: because we have been forgiven in Christ. I guess the problem people have with forgiveness, with forgiveness, is that they haven't received it and thus find it hard to give away. So if that's you, you need to receive your forgiveness and peace with God by putting your faith in Jesus. Many people think we have to earn our place in God's kingdom by some complicated measuring of our good deeds minus our bad deeds. But that is a lie, and like any good lie, has been told, shared, and believed by most of the world. But that is not the truth. The reason Christ came and died and rose again was to bring men to God by paying for their sins with, with his life. Jesus died so we could be forgiven. We don't have to do anything but receive the gift of forgiveness and new life by putting our faith in him. So say a prayer that acknowledges your sins and that declares Jesus as your Lord and Savior. When you do that, you receive your forgiveness. And once you receive it, you can let go of the bitterness that makes you feel powerful, and instead you can know the power of God's love. And you can share it by forgiving those who have trespassed against you. Forgiveness is setting yourself free of the bitterness, the hurt, and the hate that comes from holding on to your pain. We can forgive because God has forgiven us. So keep walking and talking with God and share the good news of the, of the forgiveness that comes through faith in Christ alone. That gives you the power to live a life of righteousness and freedom. When we walk with Him, the Lord takes the pain away and gives us peace. Today's Bible verse comes to us from the New Living Translation Bible, Promise Book for Men. This morning's meditation verse is Isaiah 5:21, and it says, 'What sorrow for those who are wise in their own eyes and think themselves so clever.' Today's verse reminds us of the ultimate dissatisfaction that comes from thinking that we are wise and clever independently of God. The problem is that no matter how smart we are or how much we study and learn, we don't know everything. God does. So, we may become very skillful and wise on how to lead a successful life by the world's standards, but unless we come in line with the Lord's wisdom, we we are deceiving ourselves and one day will be exposed as fools. The way things work in the world and the way things work in God's kingdom are different. So as today's verse tells us, we think we are wise in our own eyes. By our own estimation, we eventually experience sorrow of learning that we didn't know it all. One of the greatest things about walking in the Spirit are those times when we think we are walking strong and doing everything right. Only to discover we are, we are wrong about something. And when we mess something up, when we fail, our spiritual pride is put in its place. And even though those times can be very discouraging, we actually should be encouraged because they demonstrate to us that we are not wise and we desperately need the Lord to help us. So seek the Lord and his wisdom and his presence. We can't know everything, and God doesn't expect us to know everything. He just wants us to know and walk with him. As always, I invite all to go to mtforchrist.org, where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk. Today we continue sharing from Clinton Arnold's Powers of Darkness. And today's section, uh, of the conclusion of his book, uh, is on receiving and appropriating God's enabling power. So if you want God's power, you might want to go to mtforchrist.org and see what, um, uh, Clinton Arnold has to say about that in his book. Uh, as always, we share these resources, uh, for your edification and enjoyment, and, uh, we always encourage you to actually go out and purchase the books that we share from to support the authors and to, you know, have that resource at your hands, in your hands, so you can read the whole thing in one sitting and share it with others. And that's really a cornerstone of our faith, is to share what we know. And we know the love of the Lord, we know salvation that comes through our faith in Jesus Christ, and that's why we, we do what we do here on the podcast and our blog. We've discovered our freedom and victory in Christ, and we're going to encourage other people to experience it for themselves as well, and to discover the meaning and purpose in their life that come through their faith in Jesus Christ. Um, last night I encouraged the men that with God nothing is impossible, that many of the problems that people declare as chronic or are, you know, something you always have to deal with, that are things we can overcome through our faith. When we, when we know who we are in Christ and live according to our identity in Christ, we have not just a coping mechanism, but we have the cure, we have the healing that comes from the Lord. The things the world would say about us don't compare to what the Lord would say about us. And so when we come in line with that truth, we can have peace and we can have victory over the things that beset us. When we see that these things aren't good for us, even though unforgiveness feels great— you ever hold a grudge? It's sort of wonderful in its brokenness, because you get to, you get to hate someone, you get to reject someone. Suddenly you're you're higher than they are even though they've hurt you. You're going to withhold your presence, your relationship with them, and you can forgive without being in a relationship. So the forgiveness is for you and your relationship with the Lord. The Lord tells you to forgive because he doesn't want that bitterness in your heart. He wants his heart— he wants your heart to be on him and loving others. And so we do the hard thing sometimes and forgive from the heart to set ourselves free from the bitterness that would easily beset and destroy us. So, um, hopefully that's helpful. Um, as always, we encourage people to check out our lessons. Yesterday we shared a whole blog post of links to our teaching series on Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ that are on YouTube. We shared links to the podcast on all these different formats and links to our, our, uh, our social media groups where we share our message, um, and where you could share your message of encouragement as well with the Facebook groups or the Reddit groups if that's what you're into. You know, basically I use all these media things to try to get this message of freedom and, uh, you know, peace in Christ, uh, out to the masses. And hopefully those links will be helpful. Um, so without further ado, I think I'll wrap it up. But I would encourage everyone to read their Bible. Um, obviously we, we encourage that because we do a show called Bible Study with the Sincaidis, um, that we produce once a week, a show, I guess. Yeah. It's just an informal Bible study where we talk about the things of God and look to what Scripture has to say about it. So if you want to check those out, the links for those are on that post as well. So go to yesterday's, you know, yesterday afternoon's post and see M.t. Clark's links, or go to the links label that's on our website and you'll be able to find that post and, and all the links that are in it. I just decided that it could be helpful for anyone who's trying to find those specific material, you know, that we put out before. So we hope that's helpful, and let's pray because that always helps. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. We thank you so much for all that you've done for us, for showing us the truth and for forgiving us and setting us free to forgive others and to love others and serve others and to to find our meaning and purpose in your kingdom, Lord. Lord, we pray for everyone listening today that they would be blessed with the power of the Holy Spirit in their life, the anointing that comes from walking with you, that comes from agreeing with your word, and that comes from knowing who you are in Christ. Lord, we, we pray for the people who are listening today that you come alongside their prayer request and encourage them in their faith. Um, or we just pray, as always, we pray for you to go before all of us today and to open our eyes to the things you want us to see and open our, our hearts to the things you want us to do. And we ask for your guidance to lead us into those good works that you have prepared for us and give us the courage to boldly do it and to best represent you uh, and all the things that we do today. Lord, we thank you, we praise you, we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.