Advice #53

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ADVICE DAD NEVER GAVE YOU

Ralph Sorter

   Life is an adventure in forgiveness.  You can’t make it through life without being hurt, and without forgiveness you will leave a bloody trail. 

   You see the walking wounded every day.  Much of their conversation centers around what so-in-so did to them.  You hear anger, bitterness and resentment in their conversation.  Resentment has been defined as bitterness put in the deepfreeze. 

   Let’s turn the conversation around from “them” to “us.”  Are you dealing with issues that need to be forgiven?  You may think you have forgiven them, but if you continue to blame them or talk about what was done to you, you haven’t opened your hand to forgiveness.  You can’t shake hands with a clenched fist. 

   Forgiveness releases the person of their debt.  It wipes the record clean.  It doesn’t erase the memory, or the neglect the lessons learned from the painful experience…but forgiveness has completed its work if you can recall the event and the anger and resentment are gone.  It’s all wrapped up in the ability to let go and go on…abandoning any thought that there is still an outstanding debt.  They may not have even asked for forgiveness, but for your walk in Christlikeness and your own peace of heart, you can forgive them even if its never made right.

   I realize that’s hard…forgiveness is hard work.  It takes a bigger person to do that.  And I know it’s easier to say it than it is to live up to it.  It took me several years to let go, forgive, and go on because of an event that wounded me and forever changed me.  But when Jesus reminded me of how many times I hammered the nails into His hands, I was convicted to say the same thing: “Father, forgive them.  They know not what they do.”

   Can you look down from your cross and say the same words to those who drove the nails into your hands?  If so, congratulations…you are more Christlike today than you were yesterday!

A Message from HOPE’S

Marriage & Family Ministry

ADVICE DAD NEVER GAVE YOU

Ralph Sorter

   Life is an adventure in forgiveness.  You can’t make it through life without being hurt, and without forgiveness you will leave a bloody trail. 

   You see the walking wounded every day.  Much of their conversation centers around what so-in-so did to them.  You hear anger, bitterness and resentment in their conversation.  Resentment has been defined as bitterness put in the deepfreeze. 

   Let’s turn the conversation around from “them” to “us.”  Are you dealing with issues that need to be forgiven?  You may think you have forgiven them, but if you continue to blame them or talk about what was done to you, you haven’t opened your hand to forgiveness.  You can’t shake hands with a clenched fist. 

   Forgiveness releases the person of their debt.  It wipes the record clean.  It doesn’t erase the memory, or the neglect the lessons learned from the painful experience…but forgiveness has completed its work if you can recall the event and the anger and resentment are gone.  It’s all wrapped up in the ability to let go and go on…abandoning any thought that there is still an outstanding debt.  They may not have even asked for forgiveness, but for your walk in Christlikeness and your own peace of heart, you can forgive them even if its never made right.

   I realize that’s hard…forgiveness is hard work.  It takes a bigger person to do that.  And I know it’s easier to say it than it is to live up to it.  It took me several years to let go, forgive, and go on because of an event that wounded me and forever changed me.  But when Jesus reminded me of how many times I hammered the nails into His hands, I was convicted to say the same thing: “Father, forgive them.  They know not what they do.”

   Can you look down from your cross and say the same words to those who drove the nails into your hands?  If so, congratulations…you are more Christlike today than you were yesterday!

A Message from HOPE’S

Marriage & Family Ministry

ADVICE DAD NEVER GAVE YOU

Ralph Sorter

   Life is an adventure in forgiveness.  You can’t make it through life without being hurt, and without forgiveness you will leave a bloody trail. 

   You see the walking wounded every day.  Much of their conversation centers around what so-in-so did to them.  You hear anger, bitterness and resentment in their conversation.  Resentment has been defined as bitterness put in the deepfreeze. 

   Let’s turn the conversation around from “them” to “us.”  Are you dealing with issues that need to be forgiven?  You may think you have forgiven them, but if you continue to blame them or talk about what was done to you, you haven’t opened your hand to forgiveness.  You can’t shake hands with a clenched fist. 

   Forgiveness releases the person of their debt.  It wipes the record clean.  It doesn’t erase the memory, or the neglect the lessons learned from the painful experience…but forgiveness has completed its work if you can recall the event and the anger and resentment are gone.  It’s all wrapped up in the ability to let go and go on…abandoning any thought that there is still an outstanding debt.  They may not have even asked for forgiveness, but for your walk in Christlikeness and your own peace of heart, you can forgive them even if its never made right.

   I realize that’s hard…forgiveness is hard work.  It takes a bigger person to do that.  And I know it’s easier to say it than it is to live up to it.  It took me several years to let go, forgive, and go on because of an event that wounded me and forever changed me.  But when Jesus reminded me of how many times I hammered the nails into His hands, I was convicted to say the same thing: “Father, forgive them.  They know not what they do.”

   Can you look down from your cross and say the same words to those who drove the nails into your hands?  If so, congratulations…you are more Christlike today than you were yesterday!

A Message from HOPE’S

Marriage & Family Ministry

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