““As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”  Colossians 3:12-13  

“Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” Ephesians 4:32 

Dear Faithful Friends, Family of God and Saintly Seed-Sowers:
Greetings to you as we approach “Father’s Day” and the beginning of the season of Summer! We’ve already have a few over 100 degree days! The hot days of Summer are here!

First, I’d like to apologize that I did not get a Seed of Faith out to you last week.  It was a rough week in my recovery from the chelation therapy.  The good news is that I am having more good days now than bad days.  Praise the Lord!

In our last “Seed of Faith” we studied how we are called to “bear with one another.” That sounds like something I do. Bear with one another. But what about what comes next?

“Forgive One Another, as the Lord has forgiven you.”

It takes a whole lot in order for us to forgive one another, doesn’t it?  It is true that we need to be kind, compassionate, meek, humble and patient with others. And it’s really good advice for us to clothe ourselves with these awesomely-terrific qualities. Thanks, Paul. But, you know what? It’s just not as easy as it sounds.

In the midst of these “one another” passages, I think we’ve finally run into one that we all struggle with: forgiveness. We do not do this “FORGIVE ONE ANOTHER” very well, and, yet, if we read God’s word, we are going to find it. In Matthew 6, Jesus gives us what we call “The Lord’s Prayer.” Get it? The Lord’s prayer. Listen to what Jesus says in verse 12, “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” How about verses 14 and 15? “If you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”

Couldn’t get much clearer than that, could it? And that’s not the Apostle Paul in all his wisdom and education speaking, this is God’s one and only Son speaking.

Why don’t we forgive one another? Could Paul have tried to shine a light on this subject for us? Is it because we forget to clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience? I wonder.

I’m going to share a personal story here. It’s my wife’s story about a dream she had in July of 2012. I remember it vividly because when she woke up, she jumped out of bed at 6 a.m. If you know my wife, you know she isn’t a morning person.  She needs her cup of coffee and an hour of no talking in order to jump anywhere! Here’s her story:

I had just been through a crushing 7 week-experience where I was the one who had been thoroughly crushed. I was hurt, and angry. I blamed everyone for everything. I went to sleep on July 3rd asking God to help me do the unthinkable–forgive. What transpired that night was a dream so real that, when I woke up at 6 a.m. on July 4th, I jumped out of bed yelling, “My heart. My heart. I just had heart surgery!  I’m healed!”

My husband jumped out of bed. “Slow down. Are you dreaming?” I sat back down and regurgitated my dream. I didn’t want to miss a single detail of this great dream. By nature, I’m a dreamer. I dream a lot. In many of my dreams, a person (whom I’m very comfortable calling the Holy Spirit) comes alongside me and as I take his hand, I am jet-packed from this world into another world far away. I remember that as we flew, we soared above the earth and finally stopped at a huge cathedral type building. The inside of the building was glorious! Everything was white: the ceiling, the floor, the walls. The walls had veins of gold throughout them. The next thing I remembered, I was standing against the wall. “If you stay still, this won’t hurt one bit,” the voice spoke to my heart. I’m a wise person when it comes to hurt, so I stood still, very still. The Holy Spirit reached into my body and took my heart into His hands. I remember seeing something that resembled a beating heart in His hands only it was grotesquely blackish not red. And then up the Spirit went. That’s when I noticed pillar after pillar in row after row–all white, all extremely tall, and about 3′ in diameter. The Spirit started kneeding my heart; he appeared to be looking for something. My heart had the consistency of play-dough. “Look! What is this?” He pulled out a black rock–about 3-4″ in size. I knew what the rock was. The rock was one of my oldest grudges–all the way back to childhood. And so it started and one by one the Spirit kneeded rock after rock, showing each one to me. “What’s this one?” And with each rock, I knew exactly what had caused the grudge to start with. The spirit worked and worked until my heart held no other rocks. His heart spoke to my heart, “You are a good grudge-keeper. You are one of the best grudge keepers on earth. You are one of the best ever.” I knew it was true. I had tried and tried to forgive but I just didn’t know how. I’d forgive today and take it back tomorrow. And I had repeated that system for 50 years. “I’m so sorry. I’m trying to forgive. I just don’t know how to do it fully.” The Spirit never seemed mad or angry with me as I named my grudges one by one and after what felt like days, the Spirit flipped a switch on the top of the pillar and turned on the fire. My heart was turned and rotated. And then the Spirit started forming a new heart from my old, grudge-free heart. My new heart looked a giant, valentine-style heart. Next He dipped my heart into a black, goey solution from atop the pillar. I wondered why. It looked ugly.  “Teflon. Your new heart is dipped in teflon.” At that instant, the Spirit stopped the fire and started decorating my new heart with every precious thing the earth contained: diamonds, emeralds, amethysts, sapphires, rubies, garnets. Whatever precious stones there were, my new heart now displayed them all–added to the precious stones was gold, silver, platinum, titanium, copper and every beautiful metal ever created. I watched. The Spirit worked. By the end of our time, the Spirit held up the most beautiful heart I had ever seen. The Spirit then flew (jet packed is more like it) down to where I was waiting along the wall of white marble with veins of gold. He showed me my heart. As He placed my heart back into my body, He said, “I told you this wouldn’t hurt if you held still.” Then the Spirit did one last thing. He closed my body back up and then he lovingly touched my heart area and said (from His heart to my new heart), “Now…now you have a heart like HIM. Remember your teflon heart.  When someone hurts you now, just flick that hurt right off. Your heart is coated with teflon and cannot bury those grudges anymore.” He was happy and I was, well, let’s just say, “OVER THE MOON!”

And that’s when I jumped out of bed–6 am on July 4th. I was screaming, “I just had heart surgery! My heart! My heart! I am healed. I will never be the same.” And then I told Dave all about my TEFLON HEART.

Can you see that when my wife was ready to let go of her deep hurts, pain, betrayals and unforgiveness, she was truly free to forgive? Just as God had forgiven her, she was now able to forgive.

So What?
Wow. My wife, Jac, has truly never been the same since July 4th of 2012. You can find her these days flicking her grudges off from her teflon heart. You can find her flicking her offenses off her teflon heart. You can find her flicking her sorrow, hurt, pain, shame and guilt off of her teflon heart.  My wife was amused at what an extremely good “grudge holder” she was. She thought she was good, but she didn’t know exactly how good she was. What she learned from her Teflon heart dream is that God has already forgiven her. She is free. She is forgiven.

My wife and I go around talking about being transformed by God’s grace and love. Jac knows first hand what it means to give each grudge to God. Every grudge she’s ever held was removed from her heart that night. Her heart of stone was made into a heart of love, a heart like Jesus’.  As we close out our series on BEAR WITH ONE ANOTHER…let us take a moment to refresh our Scripture:

“As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.” Colossians 3:12-13

As you fall into bed tonight, if you find any rock-hard grudges in your heart, hand them over to God–one by one. Envision your heart being de-grudged. Envision your heart being coated in Teflon. Envision every precious metal and jewel decorating your heart–you know, your new heart that looks just like Christ’s?

SEED YOU SUNDAY!

God loves you with an inexorable love and so do I,
Pastor Dave
www.theseedchristianfellowship.com

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