Monthly Archives: December 2016

Myth #4: If we forgive, we are condoning sin
Truth: Forgiveness is not about rationalizing or minimizing the offense.

Telling ourselves that “it wasn’t really that bad” or “he didn’t really mean to…” or “she was under a lot of pressure when she…” does not resolve the anger or result in forgiveness. The offense is what it is.

Forgiveness is not the same as condoning someone’s behavior. Sin is sin. The Bible says, “Woe to those who call evil good.”

Forgiveness is not denial (“It didn’t really hurt.“) or minimizing (“I’m sure he had a good reason for raping me.”).

Rather, forgiveness is about looking honestly at what happened, and coming to an understanding that God’s grace is bigger than what happened.

More next time…

These thoughts are adapted from Chapter 5 of Dwight’s book, Spiritual Self Defense. More info here:
http://ssdcourage.com/spiritual-self-defense/

Bible trivia:
Answer from last time: Daniel, Zechariah and Mary each spoke with the angel Gabriel.
New question: Bethlehem is known as the birthplace of Jesus. It is also the hometown of what important Old Testament person?

Forgiveness Myth #3: To forgive, we must bury our anger.

Truth: To forgive, we must face and acknowledge our anger, not bury it.

Yoda’s advice to his Jedi followers is almost the worst thing you can do with anger. Many people believe that Christians should bury their anger, deny it, suppress it, “forget” about it. None of those things work. The anger remains and festers inside like a cancer. Eventually it comes back out as illness, depression or an explosion of violent emotion.

Denial is a cheap substitute for grace. Lying to ourselves about what we really feel is what we do when we don’t know what else to do. But Jesus is strong enough to handle the truth. He knows what’s really inside each of us anyway.

The first step to forgiving is to acknowledge how angry we really are. Only then can we find grace big enough take that anger and replace it with peace.

More next time…

These thoughts are adapted from Chapter 5 of Dwight’s book, Spiritual Self Defense. More info here:
http://ssdcourage.com/spiritual-self-defense/

Bible trivia:
Answer from last time: Joshua, Elijah and Elisha each parted the Jordan River and crossed over on dry ground.
New question: What do Daniel, Zechariah and Mary all have in common?

Forgiveness Myth #2: If we forgive a perpetrator, we give that person power
Truth: Forgiveness does not empower the offender.

Most of us instinctively think that we will empower the offender by forgiving. The opposite is true. When we forgive, we empower ourselves, because the offense no longer drains us of the energy required to keep our anger alive. In fact, if the enemy can inspire us to hate our neighbor, then he has won. This is why we turn all the debts owed to us over to Jesus. Then we can bless and not curse. (Romans 12:14)

More next time.

These thoughts are adapted from Chapter 5 of Dwight’s book, Spiritual Self Defense. More info here:
http://ssdcourage.com/spiritual-self-defense/

Bible trivia:
Answer from last time: Luke is the longest book in the New Testament. (Although Matthew and Acts each have more chapters, Luke has more words.)
New question: What do Joshua, Elijah and Elisha have in common?

Forgiveness Myth #1: We need to try hard to forgive
Truth: We don’t have the ability to forgive—apart from Christ

For years, I believed forgiving others was something we needed to try real hard to do. I finally figured out that there is no trying hard enough. Forgiving others is impossible—on our own.

If, somehow, you owed me $1,000,000 and you couldn’t pay—it would wipe me out to cancel the debt. In the same way, the evil done to us is so great that the perpetrators cannot afford to make restitution and we cannot afford to forgive. Yet we must forgive. What do we do?

We bring those debts to Jesus. Only Jesus can restore what was stolen from us. When we let go, He mends and heals what was broken and restores what was taken. Only He can take the hate from us and replace it with love.

Christianity is impossible. That’s why we have a Savior.

More next time.

These thoughts are adapted from Chapter 5 of Dwight’s book, Spiritual Self Defense. More info here:
http://ssdcourage.com/spiritual-self-defense/

Bible trivia:
Answer from last time: Jeremiah has almost as many words as Psalms in most English Bibles. (However, in the original language, Jeremiah and Genesis each contain more words than Psalms.)
New question: What is the longest book in the New Testament?

God doesn’t make mistakes. He created us with the ability and the need to get angry sometimes. Do righteous men and women get angry? You bet they do! There is plenty in this world to get angry about.

But anger is like dynamite. Mishandled, it can get you into a lot of trouble. In this mixed-up world, sometimes we cannot use that anger for its intended use—to correct a problem or injustice—because sometimes we don’t have the freedom to do so.

So what do we do? We trade up. We hand the anger over to Jesus and see what He has in exchange for us. It might be peace. It might be joy. It might be some new insight that we never had before. It might be a plan. I don’t know what it will be, I just know that any time you give anything to God you always get something better in return.

In other words, we forgive.

More next time.

These thoughts are adapted from Chapter 5 of Dwight’s book, Spiritual Self Defense. More info here:
http://ssdcourage.com/spiritual-self-defense/

Bible trivia:
Answer from last time: The Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew (a small portion was written in Aramaic, a related language). The New Testament was originally written in Greek, the trade language of the Eastern Roman Empire.
New question: Psalms is the largest book in most English translations of the Bible. Which book has almost as many words as Psalms?