Live by the Spirit (6) - Forgive

"As water reflects a face, so one's life reflects the heart" Proverbs

It is an inevitable side effect of being human that we will hurt others and they will hurt us. Sometimes it will be deliberate and at other times it will be the sad side swipe of our own or their own incapacity to deal with life.
It's what we do with that hurt that can radically influence our life by the Spirit. Do we hold onto it letting it work it's damages on our thinking and behaviour. Or are we going to allow ourselves to be different, allow ourselves to be people of the Kingdom?

Sometimes we want to hang onto our hurt because we get an almost masochistic pleasure feeling from turning it over in our mind. And it can be convenient to blame somebody else for what is going on in our life.

We can break that cycle of despair or oppression if we choose to. Some changes are always in our power to make. And in addition there is God's life changing Holy Spirit power available in forgiveness.

Believe me I know what I am talking about. I am the son of a chronic alcoholic and for a long time I held onto (in a spirit of unforgiveness) the damages he had caused to my life. But it was through listening to God's father heart and his teaching on forgiveness, that I learnt that I could surrender that hurt and let God's grace work on it and change my inner life. It was a slow process but I have received my inner healing and I want you to know that, if you dare, you can receive yours.

I think it is essential to the life of the Spirit to ask God who we should be forgiving and also to ask who we have offended.

Once we have his answer (our heart will also help us know who) there are two actions that we need to take. Pray hard for God's grace to change your heart, so that you are given by Jesus the desire to forgive.
When you have reached the moment. Find a wise person and discuss how you can take it forward. God might give you the desire to verbalise your forgiveness but for it to be sincere we have to do it with due consideration. Years or decades may have elapsed since we received the hurt or inflicted the hurt.

I urge you to let God speak to you on this whole area. Remember he is like the father in the parable of the Prodigal Son. Ready to come out on the road to welcome you back. Luke 15:11-32

I wish peace to your heart this day as God speaks to you. May you understand life can be different and that the Holy Spirit has healing powers for us. May the Spirit visit you as you think about this. Amen

Peace be with you!

It was late that Sunday evening, and the disciples were gathered together behind locked doors, because they were afraid of the Jewish authorities. Then Jesus came and stood among them. "Peace be with you," he said. After saying this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples were filled with joy at seeing the Lord. Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father sent me, so I send you." Then he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. ( John 20:19-22 GNT)

As St Augustine says, "we are an Easter People and alleluia is our song." Authentic Christianity hinges on the belief handed down from the disciples that Jesus did indeed rise from the dead after being killed on Good Friday. For us it is what marks him out as more than just a wise man who had a way with words. Because resurrection can only be achieved using God's power.

I guess some of us need proof of this and some question it. And this is the what Gamaliel the high priest himself wrestled with, when he was being asked to imprison Jesus' followers. He said this: "....so in this case, I tell you, do not take any action against these men. Leave them alone! If what they have planned and done is of human origin, it will disappear, but if it comes from God, you cannot possibly defeat them. You could find yourselves fighting against God!” Full passage here Acts 5:34-39 GNT.

For me that is one of the proofs that Jesus is the Son of God, if he was just a Charismatic holy man leading a sect it would have died out. A couple of thousand years later no one would have known about it. Instead from the seed of Jesus life, death and resurrection and of a crew of 12 hand picked misfits Christianity has been formed. As Gamaliel says it has to come from God. It has to come from God to have survived the folly and mistakes we have made in the name of religion. The Holy Spirit is the soul or animator of the church and makes it come out of disaster into victory when we let it. It leads us out of darkness into His wonderful light.

So I put it to you that the hand of God is on history and also on our lives today. We can't always see it but it is there. Imagine spray painting with your child...you get your little one to stretch out their fingers on the paper and spray paint their hand and the paper. When she removes her hand the shape is there but the hand is not. But we can understand that her hand was there originally because we can see the silhouette! Well human history is like that we can't always visibly see God, but we can understand by the imprints left on our lives and the lives of others. The times of grace and of awareness of his presence.

There were over 500 witnesses to the presence of the risen Jesus. That is considerably more than would be needed for a court of law to say that it was proved beyond reasonable doubt. How many witnesses do we need to believe?

Are you a scoffer? Maybe not ... if you are this is what God has to say "look you scoffers! Be astonished and die! For what I am doing today is something you will not believe even when someone explains it to you!" Acts 13.41

Dear Jesus, renew my knowledge of you. Let me receive the Holy Spirit into my life and may it melt my doubt and strengthen my faith. Help me please, I pray, to move forward from this day seeking your love and sharing your peace. Amen