Praising God’s Amazing Faithfulness to Uphold and Confirm His Word!
Based on FAM Chat Friday night, Friday’s SOF post, Behold, I WILL DO a NEW Thing!, ended up being a little more challenging to accept or understand than usual. Apparently some of the FAM Fellowship members are struggling with the concept of FORGETTING and making a deliberate choice and decision to put aside all of the negative emotions associated with past hurts and disappointments. In fact, I was finally led to respond by reminding some of our members that it was not just MY idea or opinion that forgiveness requires forgetting; that it is what God’s Word says. But some seemed to struggle with believing that it is even possible to “forget” and wanted to “prove” their point. But as I also felt it necessary to point out, if God tells us to do it, it is not wise to question whether or not it is doable! And upon further reflection after chat Friday night, I realized that those having a difficult time believing that God actually expects us to forget what we have forgiven are really just struggling with forgiveness, which is why they can’t understand the concept. They can’t ever imagine not feeling their pain, so that makes it hard to believe that it’s ever possible NOT to feel or remember it.
Regular visitors to the website know that one of the things about God that always just blows my mind is His faithfulness to confirm things the way He does, and Friday’s FAM Chat was no exception! One of the FAM Fellowship members called me last night, quite excited, because she wanted to let me know that Charles Stanley was preachin a message about forgiveness! I had already missed it on my local channel, so couldn’t wait to see it this morning! And the text Dr. Stanley used for his message was one I had forgotten and didn’t include in my original post Friday, but which I have since added! He used Ephesians 4:30-32, which says And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 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. He didn’t focus as much as I did on making the point that we have to forget, but he did say that we may not literally forget, but that the negative emotions and reactions associated with unforgiveness are put aside and that if we continue to have a negative emotionall reaction to a situation, then we haven’t forgiven it. Then, in addition to getting the link to Dr. Stanley’s wonderful message this morning, when I went to his website, I found this awesome article from In Touch Magazine, titled Myths about Forgiving! It’s a GREAT article and I ESPECIALLY appreciate the point he made about NOT confessing forgivenesss to someone who has NOT asked for it; or believing that they must repent and ask for our forgiveness BEFORE we give it! And you can read Dr. Stanley’s Sermon Outline for today’s message, The Landmine of Unforgiveness, which also includes links to watch or listen to today’s message. And everyone in FAM Chat Friday night probably won’t believe how much of our discussion is confirmed in Dr. Stanley’s message! It’s awesome!
Thank you, Lord, for your amazing faithfulness to confirm and uphold the truth of your Word! Amen!