French Fries and Forgiveness

I love french fries. I could eat them every day and probably every meal too, especially when they are seasoned just right. To make it even better, I love eating them “the Dutch way” which to me means with a little mayo.Those Dutch people are brilliant! But if every time I ate a meal, I went with my feelings and ate them...I bet in a 2-3years I’d die of a heart attack after watching my health decline quickly. Instead, when I sit down to a meal 9 out of 10 times I choose a healthy meal because I am desiring to be healthy and I want to live a long life. I am making choices that benefit my wellbeing and not my feelings.
So is our spiritual life. If every time we were presented with the menu of the world, we followed our feelings, and did what felt right...I’m telling you, you will become spiritually dead in a short amount of time. But if you so desire spiritual health, then you have to eat your vegetables, even though they don’t taste as good as french fries and mayo.. What I mean by this is you have to choose to eat and do what will bring you spiritual health, not death. The greatest news about this is we get to choose how we turn out, we get to choose, by our actions, how healthy we are!
One verse that I can not stop thinking about is found in Isaiah 7:15.
It says ‘Butter and curds and wild honey shall he eat when he knows enough to refuse evil and choose good.’’ Its been really hitting me, Jesus was fully man, (Fully man!) he had to choose to do good, it just didn’t “just happen” to him either. He had to choose it.
What am I getting at, I want you to choose something today and it’s something called
Forgiveness, our secret weapon.
If you are anything like me you have the mentality that when you are wronged, you think “I won’t forgive them they don’t deserve my forgiveness’’ mentality. Or am I just being too real?
I know so many times for me in my life when I have been seriously wronged I withhold forgiving because I think some how my unforgiveness will make them pay for what they did to me...Well, boy was I wrong! Over the last few months God has been opening my eyes to see what really happens. When I withhold my forgiveness it actually puts me in chains while the person who did the hurt is walking around free! Oh, the irony! I realized that I was the one who was really paying for what happened, not them. So lets look at this another way, I know for most of us we know we should forgive but we just can’t because the hurt is so great. I want to let you know we have been misinformed as the church the real truth about forgiveness. We see forgiveness as a weakness, we see it as us having to be the underdog, to not say ‘what they did to me was unjust!’ To, in a sense, submit or roll over.
Well I’m telling you that is not forgiveness. True forgiveness is actually one of our greatest weapons, It’s a powerful force. and it in no way excuses the person, or harm done. It says I’m moving forward away from you (or it) but God is going to require payment from them..and I get to walk away free.
So do you want it?
Do you want to walk away free, with the upper hand, with the great victory and leave the memory to be judged?
I have great news for you, You can choose it. You can choose your freedom today. We don’t have to do things because we feel them, we can choose to believe the truth and find our freedom..Then the “good” feeling will follow the right choices we have made!
If you have read the New Testament, you will see how many times forgiveness is addressed, I started paying attention to it and realized that this must be a big deal if its talked about so much. I just want to be honest with you, I am a really laid back person, things don’t really ruffle me all that often, so I thought I was practicing forgiveness and being a really forgiving person. Ha! The Lord is so kind in his correction, I was way off. I opened the door to ask and see, is there really anything I need to forgive, I mean to really look at.. and lets just say almost ever day for 3 months I have been repenting and forgiving. Most of it was I held so much un-forgiveness towards myself for things I have done, from little things to big things. But every day that I forgive, I feel lighter. Every day I forgive, I feel stronger. Life feels different to me now. I feel so hopeful, so joyful. I realized my un-forgiveness had me bound as a slave for so long and this freedom tastes so good that I want more and all of it. Thats why I am going to the depths of myself to get rid of anything that will hinder my freedom.
We don’t forgive because we feel like it, we forgive because its our key to freedom. When we choose to forgive, we have just picked up our greatest weapon.
If you want freedom, here are some resources that are changing my life presently...
Mark 11:26, John 20:22-23, 2 Corinthians 2:10-11 Matthew 18:15-35, Matthew 6:14-15.(For those of you that think these verses are out of context, that is up to you, it is my desire that you read the entire chapter and even more, the entire Bible that you may know the context, I just desire to give a point of reference to begin at.)
The Bondage Breaker, Neil T Anderson
Sozo, Ron and Christine Hamstad
and of course.... Battlefield of the Mind, Joyce Meyer