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By Shana Schutte
“Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you." (Ephesians 4:32) I have a confession. There have been a couple times in my life when someone has sinned against me that I haven’t had cuddly and fuzzy feelings toward them. In fact, my first response wasn’t even forgiveness. It was that I wanted justice; I wanted them to feel a little of the pain I was feeling. (I know, super ugly confession.) Emotional pain is a part of all of our lives. Sometimes it’s circumstantial, not caused by someone. Other times, it is caused by another person and it may even be intentional. Hurt may come to us through the sins of betrayal, deception, harsh words, abuse, or even unmet expectations. A while back, after doing some ungodly stewing about a particular personal mistreatment, I looked for biblical answers online and came across some tremendous teaching from Bob Hamp of Gateway Church. As I watching a video from Hamp, I learned that emotional pain inflicted by another person through sin, anger, and the desire for justification are connected, and I was reminded that forgiving others is a gift from the Lord Jesus. Here’s how it often shakes out when someone hurts us: Someone sins against us. We feel emotional pain. We become angry. Then, we want to try to fix the pain we feel by making the other person pay. We want to seek justification through pay back. Maybe we want them to feel the pain we feel. We want them to be unhappy. But of course, no amount of revenge or justification can ever remove the hurt we feel. It’s impossible. So, what’s the answer for our pain? It’s accepting what the other person did to us, acknowledging and accepting the pain they caused us, and even accepting the consequences of their actions in our life. This may sound like giving up. It’s not. It’s the answer for emotional healing and freedom. Why? Because only when we accept what they did to us and accept the consequences of what happened can we give our hurt to God so He can heal us. It’s impossible to fix our pain through payback. Until then, our hearts will be so hardened toward the other person and focused on what they did, that God’s healing for our pain will be blocked. When you “let the other person go” and let God deal with their sin, you can finally be free to turn to Christ and allow Him to minister to your pain. Revenge and justification can never heal. Only forgiveness can. So, it is true after all. . .forgiveness isn’t just for the other person, it’s for us too. It’s a gift from the Lord Jesus so we can be emotionally set free from the pain of being wronged. Hallelujah! “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” (Ephesians 4:31-32). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The weekly devotionals seek to encourage you to dig deeper into Scripture as you take the time to daily read, meditate, and internalize the verses in the devotional, along with the passages provided below to give greater context. Take the time to read them throughout the week (repetition is important) and ask the Holy Spirit to help you grasp what God is showing you about Himself, about you, and how to live in light of these truths. Passages to read/memorize/meditate: Isaiah 43:25-26 Matthew 6:14-15 Acts 3:19 Ephesians 4:31-32 Questions to Reflect on:
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“The heartfelt counsel of a friend is as sweet as perfume and incense.”
(Proverbs 27:9) Genuine friendship is a beautiful gift (Proverbs 27:9). It is tested and true that a “friend loves at all times…” (Proverbs 17:17). With great thankfulness I’ve come to realize that I am a product of the quality friendships that God has given me. However, as I grow older, I find that it gets harder for me to establish friendships and I wonder if I am the only one. I see the depth of friendships established in my youth that have endured to the present. When I reflect on the effort, time, and vulnerability it took to develop the deep understanding we now have, sometimes my heart is unwilling to invest that much into something or someone new – especially with no guarantee of reciprocity. A year and a half ago, I got married and moved across the country to California. It was an exciting, yet a challenging time. Because I was used to moving around and finding myself in new communities, I thought the adjustment would be easier. After all, I had witnessed God’s faithfulness to me in those “new” places through the beauty of new friendships. But this move was different and to my surprise, it wasn’t easy. In fact, with the other dynamics I was adjusting to, I felt the heaviness of not having the familiarity of friends even more. I found myself slowly leaning towards the mentality I told myself I would never adopt: “no new friends.” I was just tired of having to start over. I didn’t have the strength to try. As real and true as those sentiments were, I’ve learned that it shouldn’t define how we approach friendships as we get older, especially as Christians. Our lives will be full of transitions that lead us into new places, new communities and meeting new people. But if we subscribe to the “no new friends” mentality, we will miss out on the richness of God’s purposes through friendships in every season. In tears, I brought all those emotions and realities before the Lord. And in prayer, He revealed to me the ways in which all of those emotions were rooted in fear because ultimately, my pride was getting in the way of trusting God. Fear told me that I will never have friendships where I felt truly known in this new community. My pride believed it and told me to lean on my own understanding on how to navigate that fear, which was this: Just don’t try to connect with others. Keep them at surface level. What’s the point of putting myself out there? Just maintain the friendships I have, even if they were 3,000 miles away. You see, “no new friends” is a mentality that says I would rather stay in the bubble that allows me to be comfortable. I would rather keep from being known by others that God has put on my path in new seasons because that makes me feel like I’m in control. We dismiss the command of living a gospel-driven life when we keep certain people to ourselves and keep others away. Letting people into our lives is an implication of the gospel. Openness to new friendships is one way we “let our light shine” (Mt. 5:15-16) and “love our neighbor as ourselves” (Mark 12:31). The world may say, “keep your space and keep your comfort.” But God’s Word shows us that our lives aren’t meant to be kept to ourselves. We are to live in the beauty of community-His church (Hebrews 10:24-25, Romans 12:4-5, Acts 2: 46-47, 1 John 1:7), and to love and know those around us, including those outside the church. We are to be known in whatever new place we find ourselves. We can find encouragement. We can find counsel. We can find growth-all important work of sanctification and conforming to His likeness. Most importantly, we will find opportunities to live out and speak out the good news, to ourselves, to new friends who are running after Christ and new friends who are running from Christ. While we can and should choose our friends wisely (Proverbs 12:26), I believe there are those that God chooses for us even if we wouldn’t choose them ourselves. His ways are higher than ours and the dynamics of friendships differ in every season. I’ve learned that I don’t have to hold onto the idea that it has to look like the other friendships I have. There is wisdom in diversity. Living out a gospel-centered approach to new friendships takes work, but God is ultimately the one who started the work and will be faithful to complete it (Phil 1:6). After all is it not God who works in us to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose? (Phil 2:13) If you are at all like me when it comes to new friendships, know that it will take time, but that God will give us the patience. It will take fighting the flesh to keep from being fearful and prideful, but know that the Holy Spirit will give us the strength. Friendship is a beautiful means of grace the Lord gives. May we not lean on our own understanding. My prayer is that we trust the Lord in this area because He knows what we need more than we do. May we submit every fear and pride that keep us from experiencing God’s good plans through friendships. Praise God we can be free from the #nonewfriends mentality. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The weekly devotionals seek to encourage you to dig deeper into Scripture as you take the time to daily read, meditate, and internalize the verses in the devotional, along with the passages provided below to give greater context. Take the time to read them throughout the week (repetition is important) and ask the Holy Spirit to help you grasp what God is showing you about Himself, about you, and how to live in light of these truths. Passages to read/memorize/meditate: Proverbs 27:9 Proverbs 17:17 Proverbs 12:26 Matthew 5:15-16 Mark 12:31 Hebrews 10:24-25 Romans 12:4-5 Acts 2:46-47 1 John 1:7 Philippians 1:6/2:13 Questions to Reflect on:
“For He knows our frame; He remembers we are dust...”
(Psalm 103:14) When God created Adam and Eve and placed them in the Garden of Eden, He displayed to them all the blessings of His creation they had surrounding them in the garden and then proceeded to give them ONE commandment: “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, BUT of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall NOT eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:16-17). To think of the hundreds, if not thousands of trees that existed in the garden, you would gather that the one limitation they were commanded to have wouldn’t be that tempting. But we know what the crafty and shrewd serpent does in the account of what we know to be “the Fall.” (Genesis 3). Satan deceives them into thinking that the limitation God set in keeping away from that one tree was evil. He made them question God’s motive and made them believe their own understanding. Little did they know (because of their limitation) that God’s intent in setting that limitation was His wisdom in action and not being evil to keep them bound. It was actually to keep them free. Free from death. Free from the power of sin. Free from knowing what they didn’t have to know. The world will tell you that limitations are weakness. It will tell you that you are limitless. While the capabilities that God has given mankind are incredible (and all we have to do is look at what we humans have created, invented and accomplished to see that), the actual thought that we are limitless is a path that can lead us away from an All-knowing, Sovereign God who created us with limitations. But in the same way Adam and Eve leaned on their own understanding of limitations, it will lead us down the same path. It will make us think that God’s wisdom in creating us isn’t sufficient. He must be holding out on us. So I must do more. I must be more. I must know more. We don’t have to look far to see our limitations. We sin. We get sick. We have pain. We get fatigued. We see death. We experience suffering. All of these remind us just how limited we are. And by our own understanding, we would think that these limitations are to mark us as simply weak creatures, but in reality, as Christians, these weaknesses and limitations move us forward to that glorious day, when our faith is made sight and every tear is wiped from our eyes and we are with our Savior forever. What God displayed on the cross through Jesus shows us that it took One who had to be perfect (Hebrews 7:28) to pay the price of what our sin would have caused us to bear. We weren’t capable of doing that perfect work and praise God. Because One did and hope in HIM gives us the strength to live out our weaknesses, and not in vain, but in great purposes used for God’s glory. In God’s wisdom, we find that our limitations do a great work in us: They humble us. They remind us we aren’t God. We don’t have every gift. We aren’t perfect. And we weren’t created to be. (Psalm 103:14) They sanctify us. They push us toward looking like Christ as we continue to repent and walk in obedience. (1 Peter 1:2) They fortify us. They keep us holding on to the One who is strength. And when we are in Him, we are strong. (2 Corinthians 12:10) They keep us. God’s wisdom is beyond ours. And His wisdom is rooted in love. His ways and thoughts are not ours (Isaiah 55:8-9). And to endure this faith walk, we must rest in that for we never know what He is keeping us from. And most importantly, they exalt Him. We are created to give Him glory. He is the Creator. He is King. He is All knowing. He is Sovereign. He is God and there is none like Him (Isaiah 45:5). In world that screams, “Be more. Do more. Know more,” let’s not get sucked into a mantra that we weren’t met to live out. Don’t let the enemy deceived you. Rather, beloved, embrace your limitations. For the ONE who is unlimited in ALL ways has embraced you and called you to something bigger than what being limitless could ever achieve. He’s called you to be His—weaknesses and all. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The weekly devotionals seek to encourage you to dig deeper into Scripture as you take the time to daily read, meditate, and internalize the verses in the devotional, along with the passages provided below to give greater context. Take the time to read them throughout the week (repetition is important) and ask the Holy Spirit to help you grasp what God is showing you about Himself, about you, and how to live in light of these truths. Passages to read/memorize/meditate: Genesis 2-3 (both chapters) Isaiah 45:5 Isaiah 55:8-9 Psalm 103:14 1 Corinthians 1:27 2 Corinthians 12:10 1 Peter 1:2Questions to Reflect on:
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