One of the basic principles God has woven into the fabric of the universe involves the very first relationship we ever had – the one with our parents. “Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with […]
Believe it or not, relationships are like physics. There are certain laws God’s woven into the fabric of the universe, certain principles at work whether we realize it or not, whether we believe in them or not. Gravity can be a tremendous blessing or a terrible curse. If you jump off your house, you’ll find […]
Ok, so we’ve got that forgiveness is a process. Maybe the sin against you was really grievous, and the person is unrepentant and still practicing their bad behavior. You’ve been working through the process of forgiveness, layer by layer, going deeper and deeper. I know with me, whenever I thought I’d forgiven the person, something […]
Forgiveness can be really hard. Especially when you’ve truly been grievously and unfairly wronged. Especially when the perp is unrepentant and their bad behavior continues. But it’s so important, because our unforgiveness keeps us in prison, not the other person. It’s a process, not a single event. It can be a long process, one that […]
I was getting prayer ministry, working through the process of forgiving someone who had done something really bad to me. Really bad. It hurt a lot, worse than anything I’d ever experienced. It was really hard to forgive them because the person was completely unrepentant. While I was learning about true forgiveness, and trying to […]
When someone has seriously wronged us, it’s really easy to put them in the Bad Guy Chair while we sit in the Good Guy Chair. They go together – if we put them in the Bad Guy Chair, we are putting ourselves in the Good Guy Chair. And if we put ourselves in the Good […]
Sometimes the hardest person to forgive is ourselves. We haven’t forgiven ourselves when we hold something against ourselves. Often, it wasn’t even our fault. For example, children often believe abuse was their fault. Abuse is never the victim’s fault, even if different behavior would have prevented it. Even if we did something stupid to get […]
Forgiving God is a strange concept to a lot of people. Not that God did anything wrong – he never sinned against us. But sometimes we need to forgive people who have never wronged us when we (wrongly) hold something against them. Dropping what we hold against someone (whether they actually wronged us or not) […]
What’s the one thing that will block our development and maturity more than anything else? God cares about relationships, and having unresolved relationship issues in this one area stagnates our Christian growth more than virtually anything else. Even the world recognizes this issue – as Bitterness. In the Kingdom of God, the Bible has another […]
In Song of Solomon 6:4, the Lover (Jesus) calls his Beloved (you and me), “majestic as troops with banners.” Armies carry banners to celebrate battles they’ve won, and to show off to any potential future adversaries how BA they are. In the next verse, Song of Songs 6:5, the Lover (Jesus) says to his Beloved […]