Spiritual Growth

[Sue Johnson]

Morning

I want to share a lesson I received recently.

A person I trusted and admired, has done things in my life which have caused great pain and sadness. He had removed my joy and tried to destroy a vison. Before giving my life to The Lord, I can honestly say, I would have gone for the jugular AND succeeded. I would have taken him down in any way I could find possible to do. I would have got EVEN!!!

With The Father's Grace, I have been able to handle a very bad situation in a very different way. I have done it HIS way and not in the way the world would encourage me to handle it. The decision to hand over my feelings to God was not easy because the human in me demands revenge, but the Bible clearly tells us, revenge is not ours....

So, one day this man was working really hard outside of my fence. He ad been working in the hot sun all day and I could see he was tired. The 'old' me would have said, GOOD...SUFFER!!! But with God's Grace, I felt the Holy Spirit prompt me very clearly, "Go and give him a cup of water". Now I know when to obey and I got the water and went to him and as I offered him the cup, the most amazing sense of peace washed over me. Revenge, Hate and Anger had lost its hold on me and I was able to feel God's compassion on this man despite what he has done to me.

So, I have grown in my faith and understanding and that is how it works. We walk through difficult situations with God's help, because on our own, we cannot but go back to the feelings of the flesh. But, with The Holy Spirit in charge, we overcome and grow.

Have a great day!

Sue

[Pronkertjie]

Bless you Sue! Thanks for sharing this. I am sure you invested in that man's life at that moment. So often we can say we forgive and hold on to the "I'll never forget" bit of it, or we say we forgive, but when the person is right in our face we experience it all over again.

Forgiveness is the most freeing thing isn't it.... not an easy thing sometimes. Sometimes you need to keep on forgiving until it doesn't hurt anymore.... but by the amazing grace of God we can.

:daisy:

[Icecub]

Lovely Sue...
:wings:

You are such an inpiration to me.... :hug:

[Oom Rob]

You know Sue, I only have to read your threads to feel better - there are many times now a days when I could let of steam in more ways than one, but then I read through your postings etc and I no longer feel that way. Once again thank you my friend.

[Sue Johnson]

Morning

Being a Christian and standing for the things Jesus taught, is very hard. We can go to church, we can sing our praises, we can do all the 'christian' stuff that we think makes us MORE christian, but the simple lessons Jesus gave us through The Word, are the most difficult to actually put into practise because we are human and will naturally deal with life from a flesh perspective. We get angry, we hate and we point fingers. We gossip, we slander and we have an amazing ability to go to great lengths to 'get back' at those who have wronged us.

Jesus taught the exact opposite. He said LOVE your enemy. Forgive those who sin against you. That is so difficult for us, but the amazing truth is, that if we do follow the Word, it really does set us free! Hate, anger, frustration all cause us pain in one way or another. These emotions eat away at our lives and cause us to be in bondage of their hold upon us. If we can learn to release those emotions to God and allow Him to deal with them, we are then free to forgive.

We cannot go before the alter with unforgiveness in our hearts. We cannot go before the alter whilst we hate others. We need to learn to let go, hand over and go before the alter free of what HURTS US.

I will daily struggle with times when the emotions return, but that is exactly when I know to hand over once again for revenge is NOT mine.

The christian way is the most difficult way but it is the right way if we truly want to learn from the lessons Jesus taught.

Sue