Let Go Of Our Painful Past—Part 15
These readings will provide additional insight into the topic covered by this most recent set of blog posts:
READINGS – Part 3
The ultimate goal is spiritual and emotional wholeness, and forgiveness is an important component of wholeness. You must acknowledge the hurt and the anger, but don’t stay there. Move on to forgiveness. Take down the barriers. Face the hurt, the fear, and the anger. Understand what forgiveness really means and abandon your stubborn decision to hold on to the past.
In The Hiding Place Corrie ten Boom wrote about forgiving someone who had hurt her. Corrie and her sister, Betsie, had been imprisoned in concentration camps during World War II.
It was at a church service in Munich that I first saw him, the former S.S. man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing center at Ravensbruck. He was the first of our actual jailers that I had seen since that time. And suddenly it was all there—the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, Betsie’s pain-blanched face.
He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming and bowing. “How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein,” he said. “To think that, as you say, He has washed my sins away!”
His hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who had preached so often to the people in Bloemendaal the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side.
Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him.
I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. So again I breathed a silent prayer, Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me Your forgiveness. As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me.
And so I discovered it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.
Are you ready to forgive the people who have hurt you? The person you need to forgive may be deceased. The person may live far away. The person may not even know about the intensity of your feelings. Nevertheless, you need to forgive. It may simply need to occur inside you. Or maybe you have done something to this person that necessitates not only dealing with this incident in your heart but also speaking a word to let him know that you have forgiven him.
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Making Peace with Your Past, Tim Sledge, Lifeway Press, page 183.
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Sunday’s coming. Do you have your sermon ready? Is it relevant? Will it effectively motivate your congregation to walk more in step with the Master? What about that Sermon Series you’ve been thinking about?
Or, if you’re someone who plans well ahead, have you asked yourself what you will preach for your Easter Sermon, your Advent Sermon, your Christmas Sermon?
David Mains and Mainstay Ministries can help. We offer a wide variety of Sermon Starters and Full Sermons that will give you Sermon Ideas to help you prepare for regular Saturday or Sunday sermons, Mid-week Bible Sermons, and Sermons for special occasions.
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For more information on how to create better Bible Sermons and how to turn Sermon Ideas into Sermon Outlines, and then into effective, meaningful Sunday Sermons, please click here to visit David Mains’ website.
You will also find a variety of resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries website. Just click here.
