I took this down recently but have decided to repost it due to a LARGE number of request...
Recently a friend asked me to pray for them in reference to some trouble they were having with their “Ex”. Of course me being me, I felt the need to add response to their email in addition to adding the appeal to my prayer list. Hand out some good Godly advice before I got to their request.
I made some good suggestions and my reply was full of Biblically sound advice. Pray for them no matter how hard it may be. Satan can and does use the unsaved to mess with our lives. Ask that God give you, and them, direction. Concentrate on being the parent you need to be – not them. I even referenced a difficult situation I had recently with my Ex that I didn’t feel was right. I made sure to include that I had approached God in prayer for them even though with some difficulty. In other words – You think you have it bad, listen to this!
Feeling pretty good about what I offered up I pressed the send button.
Before I shut my laptop I noticed a daily devotional from Greg Laurie that I read everyday titled "Barrier to prayer" in my inbox. I always like reading his stuff and opened it up. Little did I know it would have the effect on me that it did.
The barrier to prayer was forgiveness.
Reading through this devotional about forgiveness was a very humbling experience for me. See my friend had described a scenario that I felt needed to be addressed with prayer because I had been handling a similar situation that way. (I have a bad habit of thinking I know all the answers sometimes, OK – all the time) Like most devotionals this one was lead into by scripture:
So if you are presenting a sacrifice at the altar in the Temple and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, leave your sacrifice there at the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person. Then come and offer your sacrifice to God.
Matthew 5:23-24 NLT
I do pray for my Ex-wife frequently but it wasn't until I read that devotional that I realized that while I had forgiven her in the past, I was harboring new resentment that had re-ignited the old. All the prayer for her soul was being muffled by a mountain of resentment. I felt like I was making a sacrifice by praying for her, but as the scripture said - God would rather I leave that at the altar and forgive her.
I had told my fried the ONLY thing you can do FOR your Ex was pray for them. I was wrong. As much as we should pray for the "difficult" people in our lives, we also have to forgive them. Even if they haven't asked or think they need forgiving.
The entire premise of being a follower of Christ hinges on forgiveness. I forgot to put that at the top of the list of things He has done for me and it usually makes the bottom of the list of things I want to do.
Being passionate for Christ comes easy to me. Loving Christ comes naturally when I see Him working in and improving my life. And learning about Christ is awesome. Being humbled by Christ hurts a little bit, but I always welcome it, most of the time after the fact. But forgiving like Christ forgave me – not so much. And forgiveness is what allows everything else to be fully engaged. Without forgiveness we can't experience the fullness of God or be blessed to the extent He wants to bless us. God expects us to do the same thing for others that He did for us.
I keep all the lessons, sermons and devotionals I’ve written over the past few years in a file and can access them by different topics. I searched “forgiveness” and found something I wrote in the series for the “One Month To Live” challenge:
"Forgiveness isn't about you and them-it's about you and Him"
I love how God chooses to reveal Himself in my life. This time He made sure that little devotional about forgiveness was in my inbox right after I gave someone what I thought was good advice. God’s way of telling me I don’t know it all. Love that.
I asked God to help me forgive my ex-wife this morning –again. Maybe He can get to work on her soul now that He can hear my prayer...
Do you have anyone you might need to forgive or ask forgiveness of?
Blessed only by Christ love,
Jeff
