Love to hear from and know who is listening
Have you discovered that you can not control what others do to you. As hard as you try you can't control what other people say or do to you, but you can control your response. When someone hurts you, you must make a choice. You can choose to release those who hurt you or you can hold on to the hurt and let it fester up inside of you like a cancerous tumor.
Hebrews 12:15 NIV See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.
Bitterness is like a deadly acid that not only destroys the person who is holding on to it, but when you let it spill out, it also destroys everyone and everything it comes into contact with. One of the biggest things many of us as Christians struggle with is forgiveness. We either struggle with receiving God's forgiveness for our own sins or extending forgiveness to those who have wronged us.
Distancing yourself from the person hurt you, will not make the hurt go away. You can pretend that the problem doesn’t exist by avoiding the person that hurt you, but it will cripple the relationship you have them. You will start to build walls and live a guarded life. When we refuse to forgive, we are inviting Satan to empower bitterness, disunity and destroy people. Many women turn their bitterness inward and become depressed. While men turn their bitterness outward and their anger tends to escalate. So how do you move from bitterness to forgiveness?
Acknowledge your emotions about the harm done to you and how it affects your behavior, and work to release it. Choose to forgive the person who's offended you. Move away from your role as victim and release the control and power the offending person and situation has had in your life. The way you dig up the “root of bitterness” is with the “shovel of forgiveness.”
Ephesians 4:29 NIV Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.
Begin by giving the person that offended you the gift of forgiveness. Forgiveness is not only for them, it is a gift for you. Forgiveness is both a decision and a process. It may take time and cover a series of issues. You know you have forgiven them when you genuinely want God to bless them, you want good for their lives.
Forgiveness is not denying the offense ever happened. Forgiveness is not forgetting. Forgiveness is not a response to an apology. It is freely offered by the offended. We must forgive as God in Christ forgave us. No one has been sinned against us anymore than we have sinned against Jesus.
Archaeologist studying the Roman bathrooms have discovered, that rich Romans sat and relieved themselves on marble benches. Slaves took sponges to clean out the excrement and used vinegar to sanitize them once again. The vinegar sponge the soldier’s put to Jesus’ lips on the cross could have been used to clean Roman toilets. Jesus kept speaking loving words even with His dying breath. He forgave them, and He forgives you. Offer the gift of forgivness to others because Jesus Christ freely forgave you!!!
