Showing posts with label forgiveness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label forgiveness. Show all posts

Sunday, December 26, 2010

Release Your Past

How I Got Over! How I got Over! My Soul Looks back and wonders How I Got Over! I wanna Thank Him because He brought me, I wanna thank Him because He taught me, I wanna thank Him because He kept me, I wanna Thank Him because He never left me. I gonna sing Hallelujah, I gonna shout troubles over, I gonna thank God for being so good to me.

Whatever version you sing or singer you listen to, Mahalia, Aretha or Vickie the words are still powerful and inspiring. On this last Sunday of the year, I can not help but look back on what God has done for me in 2010. I realize that we have been trained that this song is to be sung when we cross over to the other side but I realized this song can be sung now because it is a song of reflection and remembrance.

Time and vocabulary limit me from saying all I could say about how good God has been to me this year so I brought a witness. His name is Joseph. The dreamer who saw his future but didn't understand all of what he saw. The boy that was cast in a pit, sold for a profit, was accosted by the first "Cougar" in the Bible, Potiphar's wife, thrown into prison but ultimately was elevated next to Pharaoh. Joseph can tell us How to make it Over.

Joseph tells us the first thing we need to do in order to make it over is to RELEASE YOUR PAST. Some people can never move into the future because they are held hostage by their past, what happened to them, who lied on them, who mistreated them. Every time they see the person they review and remember so instead of releasing their past, they REHEARSE THEIR PAIN. They live life as a perpetual victim instead of the promised victor.

No one would have been angry with Joseph if he told his brothers off. It would be expected. After all, they plotted against him. After all, the cast him in a pit, they sold him for a profit. But Joseph doesn't do this, instead he Releases His past. He says, "God did this, and not you. He sent me ahead of you to preserve you, to secure a remnant".

In saying this, Joseph is no longer the Victim but rather he is the Victor. Someone reading this needs to Release their Past. All of us have family that mistreated us; people who have lied on us; acquaintances who ate and drank in our presence while we had nothing, but God allowed this to happen, not to destroy us but to develop us.

When you have become free from you past, you live in that freedom. Have you ever met someone who describes to you something that happened to them? In their description, their breathing changes, their voice becomes elevated, the color either leaves or changes in their faces. You can tell they have become disturbed. The amazing part of this is they are describing something that happened 10 years ago but because they have never let it go, it sounds like it just happened yesterday.

When they see the person, they walk the other direction, frown up, become upset, even leave church, because they are still the Victim. They make future relationships pay for past ones. They refuse to accept future blessing because of past disappointments but God wants us to follow Joseph's example and free ourselves into victory by releasing our past.

I have written too much and hopefully will synthesize this by the time I preach it as this is just the first point but I leave the blog with this: Look at you body. All of us have a scar! Somewhere! There is a place where we fell, were struck or cut, scratched or scraped that left evidence.

When you point to the scar, you remember the story. You remember what happened. You remembered you cried, the blood, etc. However, what you can not remember is the Pain. You remember there was pain, but somehow the pain of the event is gone. If it wasn't then every time you remembered the event, you would cry, but the pain is gone.

That's what God does for us when we RELEASE OUR PAST. We remember the event, we remember the experience but we live in the Emancipation FROM the event. We are no longer a VICTIM TO but rather we are VICTORS FROM.

Yes, we have scars, yes we have wounds, yes we have evidence of battles, scrapes and dust-ups but God has freed us. Now our scars are our testimony, I am free, You meant to kill me, you tried to destroy, the scar is the proof you meant it for my evil but God meant it for my good.

I am going to the pulpit and pray this works out but I am shouting because God just gave me something that I didn't write. FOR ALL MY SCARS GOD HAS GIVE ME SOMETHING BETTER THAN COCOA BUTTER, I AM COVERED BY HIS BLOOD.

HEY GLORY, KEEP RUNNING

Owens

Monday, November 30, 2009

From Liability to Asset

During this Advent season, I am following the Lord into new territory. While studying for a particular sermon, I became enchanted with the book of Philemon and so what started as a one week journey has turned into a planned advent sojourn in this great book. We took our first walk Sunday. Our overall suggestion is that God through Jesus has left us the best gifts in the world. Sunday, we unwrapped the Gift of Forgiveness.

The importance of forgiveness is a constant theme of Scripture. There are no less than seventy-five different word pictures about forgiveness in the Bible. They help us grasp the importance, the nature, and the effects of forgiveness. Forgiveness is so important that the Holy Spirit devoted an entire book of the Bible to it. In the brief book of Philemon, the spiritual duty to forgive is emphasized, but not in principle, parable, or word picture. Through a real life situation involving two people dear to him, Paul teaches the importance of forgiving others.

Although the word forgiveness is not mentioned in this letter from Paul to Philemon, forgiveness is the reason for the writing of this letter. There are two New Testament words translated forgive. One word translated “forgive” (aphesin) means to send off or to send away. This word means the wrong is cut out and sent away from the wrongdoer. This word means the sin is separated from the sinner. This is the word that speaks of our sins being forgiven through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross.

The forgiveness offered by Jesus is offered because of our proneness to do wrong and the guilt that results from our doing wrong. However, God offers forgiveness for our wrongdoing and guilt because there is a penalty to be paid because of our wrongdoing and guilt. God forgives us because Jesus paid the penalty. Through Jesus Christ, we have been forgiven totally. Through the total forgiveness offered through Jesus, we maintain constant fellowship with God. Sin disturbs and breaks our fellowship with God. But forgiveness restores it.

Forgiveness offered through Jesus Christ is also the means by which we are released from the guilt of sin. Once we know we have been forgiven, there is no longer a need to carry the burden of the sin. The offender knows that God does not have any resentment because of the offense. The offender has a clear conscience because of being set free from the guilt and penalty of sin.
Forgiveness has to be understood as a part of justification. In justification, God set us free from the condemnation of the law. Because of the work of Jesus Christ, God removes the guilt of sin. The sinner is no longer liable for the payment for his sin.

A second word translated “forgive” (charizomenoi) means to grant pardon. It suggests being gracious to a person. It is canceling a debt or pardoning someone who has done wrong. This word translated “forgive” means a quarrel with a person has taken place. One person has hurt another person and caused that person harm. Despite being offended, the forgiving person cancels the wrong done by the offender. The hurt or harmed person is gracious to the offender. The offended person pardons the offender by wiping out the wrong and treating the person as if he has not sinned.

Sunday we tried to unwrap this gift of forgiveness in this manner, God's gift of forgiveness gave us:
I. A New Day
1. Erases our Past (justification)
2. Equips us for our Present (Sanctification)
3. Enables our Future (Glorification)


II. A New Directive
1. Speak as a partner to a partner

2. Speak as a Father to a Follower
3. Speak in Love


III. A New Designation
1. Paul=Prisoner
2. Timothy=Brother
3. Philemon=Beloved

4.Onesimus=From Slave to Son


Pray for us in this journey through Philemon as next week during this Advent season with God's help, we will unwrap the gift of Reconciliation.

Owens

Monday, September 14, 2009

It Happens After Prayer

If I were to ask you to list your top 5 examples of powerful people praying in the Bible, who would you name? We all agree with Jesus! To try and further prove a point, eliminate New Testament people, just using the OT people who would be in your top 5? I would dare to say that not many of you, if any of you listed Job. Jesus, sure, Abraham, of course, Moses certainly, Elijah and Hezekiah, can't leave them out, David, Solomon Jehoshaphat, we could go on and on and never mention Job.

The 42nd chapter is our coming out chapter, our double for your trouble chapter, our triumph over trials chapter but God leveled me to the floor when He said to me, "It all happened after prayer". I am so used to that phrase being used in other areas, other chapters, other stories, not Job 42. I was a closet "prosperity theologian", (not really just saying).

I was Bildad and didn't know it. Bildad, the forerunner of the prosperity theology movement suggested in Job 18 that if you obey God, you will be blessed and enjoy great prosperity but if you suffer it means you are out of God's will because He wants everyone well. Repent, admit, and God will bless. Well Job does repent and without realizing it privately, I thought his restoration was tired to his repentance but it didn't happen after repentance, it happened after prayer.

After God unleashes his wisdom on Job by saying in effect who and where were you, do you understand:
The Source of The Universe
The System of the Universe
The Specialization of the Universe

Job admits the error of his ways and says opening up Job 42:
I am weak
I am unwise
I am wordy (I feel ya Job)
I am unworthy

But this is not when restoration. It didn't come after repentance, it came after prayer. Vs 10 says AND, that's the conjunction, WHEN, is the adverb. "And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job, when he had prayed for his friends". It happened after prayer.

I lost it Sunday, it all hit me. Some blessings God will never let me see until I let go of some things. I read vs 10 and see enemies, God still calls them friends but either way, I still have to pray for them. My outline for Sunday was:
I. Prayer for your Enemies, vs 10
a. Forgive
b. Favor
II. Prepare for your Environment, vs 11
a. Family
b. Friends
c. Fortune

III. Provides beyond our Expectations, vs 12
a. Redemption
b. Reconciliation
c. Restoration
d. Recompensation


Like I said, I lost it Sunday and God decided to take Macedonia down the same path I was on. It was time for ALL OF US to let go of some things. There is a blessing of restoration that God wants to give us but we have to let go of the things that keep us in bondage.

I went home and preached some more to myself and wrote out a new sermon entitled, It Happens After Prayer
I. We must Follow God's Instructions
II. We must Forgive those who have Intentionally Hurt us, vs 10
III. God will give Favor to those who have been Injured, vs 11
IV. Our Future will not look like our past Incidents, vs 12


I am going to start losing weight this week, not physical pounds but emotional baggage I need to let go. Time to pray for my friends (enemies) and walk into what God has for me.

Owens