Forgiveness isn't saying, “What u did 2 me is ok.” It's saying, “I’m not going to let what u did 2 me ruin my happiness forever.” --Dr. Jerry Weichman
Sorry, Doc, but you stopped just a bit short of the mark. It IS true that forgiveness is not condoning the wrong that has been done to you! It is true that a part of forgiveness needs to be moving on and not getting stuck in the muck and mire of all the pain and loss! BUT the more part is that forgiveness - principally so that you can move on - is also promising and making the commitment to yourself and to that other person that you will NOT bring that particular offense up again against that person or rehearse it in your own mind and heart. THAT is how to be free, forgiving and forgiven!
What happens if and when the perpetrator does you wrong again? Is your forgiveness this time a "get out of jail free pass" for next time? ABSOLUTELY NOT! Then it's time to reassess and possibly renegotiate with the offender but that may or may not come to pass. For the now, moving on means leaving that pile of crap just where it needs to be left - at the feet of Jesus. He can give you the grace and strength to pick up, forgive from your heart and move on! He knows and understands ALL about what it takes to forgive! That's what He is ALL about!
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Our Hearts Can and Should Influence the World!
A word for January 10 from Joni Eareckson Tade:
As we move deeper into the New Year, today's verse serves as a faithful guide. It seems the days are more dangerous than ever with "wars and rumors of wars" crowding the nightly news programs. It appears as though the entire world is spiraling toward Sodom for "the whole world lies in the power of the evil one" (I John 5:19).
But as Christians, we should not smirk at the misery or the merrymaking of our immoral culture. This is no time for smug self-righteousness. This is no time to get cranky that our country has been hi-jacked by the "radical left." This is a season, perhaps like none other, to truly influence the world, to showcase the love of Christ through ministries of mercy. Others may whine about the triumphs of evil, but not followers of Jesus Christ. We know better. We know that ultimately good will triumph. So we showcase what that will look like by rolling up our sleeves and feeding the poor, telling about Jesus, helping the elderly and disabled, bridging racial distances, and raising the bar of common civility. "For we are... created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do" (Ephesians 2:10).
Dr. John Piper has said, "The greatness of Christian exiles is not success, but service. Whether we win or lose, we witness to the way of truth, beauty and joy. We don't own culture, and we don't rule it. We serve it with joy and mercy, for the good of man and the glory of Jesus Christ."[1]
Take a quick attitude check. If you find you are pessimistic about our culture, then commit today to serve it in practical ways which showcase the love of Christ. Lord, make me an instrument of your peace today in my community.
Blessings,
Joni and Friends [and me]
[1] Dr. John Piper,"Brokenhearted Joy," World Magazine, December 13, 2003, p 51.
Taken from
Pearls of Great Price. Copyright © 2006 by Joni Eareckson Tada. Used by permission. Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530
As we move deeper into the New Year, today's verse serves as a faithful guide. It seems the days are more dangerous than ever with "wars and rumors of wars" crowding the nightly news programs. It appears as though the entire world is spiraling toward Sodom for "the whole world lies in the power of the evil one" (I John 5:19).
But as Christians, we should not smirk at the misery or the merrymaking of our immoral culture. This is no time for smug self-righteousness. This is no time to get cranky that our country has been hi-jacked by the "radical left." This is a season, perhaps like none other, to truly influence the world, to showcase the love of Christ through ministries of mercy. Others may whine about the triumphs of evil, but not followers of Jesus Christ. We know better. We know that ultimately good will triumph. So we showcase what that will look like by rolling up our sleeves and feeding the poor, telling about Jesus, helping the elderly and disabled, bridging racial distances, and raising the bar of common civility. "For we are... created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do" (Ephesians 2:10).
Dr. John Piper has said, "The greatness of Christian exiles is not success, but service. Whether we win or lose, we witness to the way of truth, beauty and joy. We don't own culture, and we don't rule it. We serve it with joy and mercy, for the good of man and the glory of Jesus Christ."[1]
Take a quick attitude check. If you find you are pessimistic about our culture, then commit today to serve it in practical ways which showcase the love of Christ. Lord, make me an instrument of your peace today in my community.
Blessings,
Joni and Friends [and me]
[1] Dr. John Piper,"Brokenhearted Joy," World Magazine, December 13, 2003, p 51.
Taken from
Pearls of Great Price. Copyright © 2006 by Joni Eareckson Tada. Used by permission. Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530
Sunday, January 8, 2012
A Safe Place
Jesus, there's no safer place to be than in Your heart and hand, even if everything else fuels fear and brings pain! --Scotty Smith
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Danger: Where a "Deep" Heart Gets You!
“Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart."
--Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment
SO - if your heart is deep and your intelligence is large - watch out as pain and suffering are likely in the path ahead! That's why the companions we choose on life's journey are so very important! AND don't discount the Friend who sticks closer than a brother!!! Proverbs 18:24
--Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment
SO - if your heart is deep and your intelligence is large - watch out as pain and suffering are likely in the path ahead! That's why the companions we choose on life's journey are so very important! AND don't discount the Friend who sticks closer than a brother!!! Proverbs 18:24
Monday, January 2, 2012
Heart Hope and Help
Whatever commands your hope will control your heart and what controls your heart will direct your words and behavior. --Paul Tripp
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Disability Ministry from the Heart!
Why do disability ministry? For your joy!
I had lunch with a remarkable young man last week. He serves as the leader for a gathering of adults with cognitive disabilities at Bethlehem’s north campus.
He told me this story.
Parents of a 26-year-old woman with cognitive and physical disabilities heard about Bethlehem’s desire to serve adults who experience life like their daughter.
Their church experiences hadn’t been positive. In addition to not having services for their daughter in a church, she experienced physical pain when sitting for long stretches. Church, for her, was not a good place.
Her first weeks in the class at Bethlehem were hard. She was frightened and desperately wanted to stay with her mother.
But God was working. The young man leading the class is a natural leader, and several other college-aged young people joined him as volunteers. He also had the help of wise people who have walked this path of disability for many years. Most of all, God had gripped him with a desire to both communicate truths about Jesus AND love every person God brought to this class. It is the kind of love that doesn’t quit, because it is about a God who doesn’t quit.
After several weeks, the young woman had a breakthrough. She understood she could contribute to the class. She felt like she was welcome. She felt the real affections for her that were there. If she needed to move around or lay on the floor to ease her pain, she was encouraged to do so. Now, after several months, church is a delight to her.
Her parents felt it as well.
Think about that – after 26 years, God changed church from something that caused physical and emotional pain into a place she longed to be.
And as I heard this story, what I felt was the joy flowing out of this young man’s heart. He loves the adults God has brought into this class. He enjoys the hard work he must put in to prepare to teach those who have a hard time learning. He loves that his future wife is working alongside him, seeing the value in and joy around what he is doing for the sake of God’s church.
I’m very grateful God has given this young woman a good experience, a safe place, and the opportunity to learn more about Jesus.
But I’m equally grateful that God lets me see a talented young man experience more than just the satisfaction of doing something well, but increasing measures of joy and affections for those who are most likely to be marginalized and abused in our culture because of their cognitive disabilities.
I don’t know what God has for him; he’s still working on his schooling. But this I know: he is being changed by this experience; he is not the same man I first met about six months ago.
And that’s why we do disability ministry, not out of reluctant obligation or to earn favor from God, but for our own joy!
by John Knight, Bethlehem Baptist, Minneapolis, MN January 1, 2012
I had lunch with a remarkable young man last week. He serves as the leader for a gathering of adults with cognitive disabilities at Bethlehem’s north campus.
He told me this story.
Parents of a 26-year-old woman with cognitive and physical disabilities heard about Bethlehem’s desire to serve adults who experience life like their daughter.
Their church experiences hadn’t been positive. In addition to not having services for their daughter in a church, she experienced physical pain when sitting for long stretches. Church, for her, was not a good place.
Her first weeks in the class at Bethlehem were hard. She was frightened and desperately wanted to stay with her mother.
But God was working. The young man leading the class is a natural leader, and several other college-aged young people joined him as volunteers. He also had the help of wise people who have walked this path of disability for many years. Most of all, God had gripped him with a desire to both communicate truths about Jesus AND love every person God brought to this class. It is the kind of love that doesn’t quit, because it is about a God who doesn’t quit.
After several weeks, the young woman had a breakthrough. She understood she could contribute to the class. She felt like she was welcome. She felt the real affections for her that were there. If she needed to move around or lay on the floor to ease her pain, she was encouraged to do so. Now, after several months, church is a delight to her.
Her parents felt it as well.
Think about that – after 26 years, God changed church from something that caused physical and emotional pain into a place she longed to be.
And as I heard this story, what I felt was the joy flowing out of this young man’s heart. He loves the adults God has brought into this class. He enjoys the hard work he must put in to prepare to teach those who have a hard time learning. He loves that his future wife is working alongside him, seeing the value in and joy around what he is doing for the sake of God’s church.
I’m very grateful God has given this young woman a good experience, a safe place, and the opportunity to learn more about Jesus.
But I’m equally grateful that God lets me see a talented young man experience more than just the satisfaction of doing something well, but increasing measures of joy and affections for those who are most likely to be marginalized and abused in our culture because of their cognitive disabilities.
I don’t know what God has for him; he’s still working on his schooling. But this I know: he is being changed by this experience; he is not the same man I first met about six months ago.
And that’s why we do disability ministry, not out of reluctant obligation or to earn favor from God, but for our own joy!
by John Knight, Bethlehem Baptist, Minneapolis, MN January 1, 2012
Happy New Year 2012! What's to be Happy About?
A friend posted on Facebook yesterday (basically), 2011 you haven't been very kind to me so get on out of here!
What was 2011 like for you? Did you have financial troubles? Were you deceived? Did you lose your job or your home? Did someone steal from you? Did your husband or wife walk away or die? Did someone you love die? Do you feel like a fool because you acted foolishly? Are you losing your hearing or your sight? When you look in the mirror today do you see a much older, more tired you than you remember seeing just a short while ago? Are you depressed and crushed in that battle? Did you learn you have a terminal or crippling disease in 2011?
That's a pretty horrible list, isn't it? Perhaps you fit more than one category on this list! I have a very dear friend who actually fits a number of these categories all in 2011. All the circumstances listed above are terrible, horrible, no-good and very bad! No one wants to meet up with any of these things in any dark alley!
Well, I have the best news! I am telling you confidently and truly that even tho' it may seem like THE END if you face even one of these horrendous life circumstances that ........ it is NOT the end!
You may wish it were the end but it is NOT the end! It is 2012 - a NEW year - and you came into 2012 with the same broken heart you had in 2011. How can I be so sure this is GOOD news? Because I know Who God is and I know for absolute certain that He shows up in any and all of these terrible, awful, no-good, very bad circumstances of life! AND God does more than just show up! He doesn't sit on His hands! He comes to participate in these terrible, awful, no-good, very bad circumstances that seem like the sentence of death! He NEVER comes to shake His finger in your face making you feel all the worse and more desperate. He comes to you with love and a hug. He whispers in your ear that He does indeed understand. He knows and cares and acted upon His love for you and me over 2,000 years ago when He brought His Son into our time and space - into our neighborhood - into skin just like ours. God demonstrated His love in the most graphic, radical, compelling way He possible could: He sent His Son to live the life you and I never can ( a perfect life) so that His Son Jesus could die the death that you and I could never die (the death of a perfect life willingly laid down). Jesus lived and died JUST for these desperate kinds of circumstances of life! Jesus lived and died for all the terrible, awful, no-good, very bad days in 2011 (or any other year!)! Jesus lived and died for all the terrible, awful, no-good, very bad days to come in 2012! AND that's GOOD news because Jesus conquered death when He walked out of His borrowed tomb on a mountainside outside Jerusalem, Israel on the first Easter Sunday morning over 2,000 years ago! He is alive!
The poet King David wrote thousands of years before Jesus came to earth, Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for YOU are with me! (Ps. 23:4) These words, this confident confession express healthy faith! This kind of faith acknowledges the dark, deadly, desperate places we have to walk through but also affirms that we do not walk alone! How do I know that? Because Jesus lived and died and came back to life to make it so! If you doubt, if it's ever so hard to believe it can possibly be true for you - remember that God always keeps His promises!
God says to you this New Year's Day 2012: I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future! (Jeremiah 29:11) AND HE WILL! You can take that to the bank!
What was 2011 like for you? Did you have financial troubles? Were you deceived? Did you lose your job or your home? Did someone steal from you? Did your husband or wife walk away or die? Did someone you love die? Do you feel like a fool because you acted foolishly? Are you losing your hearing or your sight? When you look in the mirror today do you see a much older, more tired you than you remember seeing just a short while ago? Are you depressed and crushed in that battle? Did you learn you have a terminal or crippling disease in 2011?
That's a pretty horrible list, isn't it? Perhaps you fit more than one category on this list! I have a very dear friend who actually fits a number of these categories all in 2011. All the circumstances listed above are terrible, horrible, no-good and very bad! No one wants to meet up with any of these things in any dark alley!
Well, I have the best news! I am telling you confidently and truly that even tho' it may seem like THE END if you face even one of these horrendous life circumstances that ........ it is NOT the end!
You may wish it were the end but it is NOT the end! It is 2012 - a NEW year - and you came into 2012 with the same broken heart you had in 2011. How can I be so sure this is GOOD news? Because I know Who God is and I know for absolute certain that He shows up in any and all of these terrible, awful, no-good, very bad circumstances of life! AND God does more than just show up! He doesn't sit on His hands! He comes to participate in these terrible, awful, no-good, very bad circumstances that seem like the sentence of death! He NEVER comes to shake His finger in your face making you feel all the worse and more desperate. He comes to you with love and a hug. He whispers in your ear that He does indeed understand. He knows and cares and acted upon His love for you and me over 2,000 years ago when He brought His Son into our time and space - into our neighborhood - into skin just like ours. God demonstrated His love in the most graphic, radical, compelling way He possible could: He sent His Son to live the life you and I never can ( a perfect life) so that His Son Jesus could die the death that you and I could never die (the death of a perfect life willingly laid down). Jesus lived and died JUST for these desperate kinds of circumstances of life! Jesus lived and died for all the terrible, awful, no-good, very bad days in 2011 (or any other year!)! Jesus lived and died for all the terrible, awful, no-good, very bad days to come in 2012! AND that's GOOD news because Jesus conquered death when He walked out of His borrowed tomb on a mountainside outside Jerusalem, Israel on the first Easter Sunday morning over 2,000 years ago! He is alive!
The poet King David wrote thousands of years before Jesus came to earth, Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for YOU are with me! (Ps. 23:4) These words, this confident confession express healthy faith! This kind of faith acknowledges the dark, deadly, desperate places we have to walk through but also affirms that we do not walk alone! How do I know that? Because Jesus lived and died and came back to life to make it so! If you doubt, if it's ever so hard to believe it can possibly be true for you - remember that God always keeps His promises!
God says to you this New Year's Day 2012: I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future! (Jeremiah 29:11) AND HE WILL! You can take that to the bank!
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