Grace Is Greater Than Our Hurts
Wendy and I both have parents that would not get rid of
anything. One day after Wendy and I had been married, her dad pointed out a
stack of toys from her childhood and said, “Those are yours when you are ready
for them.” He didn’t want to throw something away that could be useful, but he
was happy to let us remove them from his basement…as I learned when he
mentioned multiple times that he had 2 wedding dresses in his house and
wondered when we were going to take ours so that he would only have one left in
the house.
My father, on the other hand, never threw anything away even
if it had no purpose or possible future use. When he passed away in January, my
mom started to go through his things and found numerous military leave slips
that had ceased to have any use the day he returned from leave more than 60
years ago. He also had 7 or 8 wallets in his dresser drawer…many that still had
cash in them. He had a box of about 150 different keys that didn’t go to any
lock that we could find. My mom spent weeks going through these things. Much of
it was useless and just taking up space.
Many of us are the same way with our emotional baggage. Some
are like my father-in-law, holding on to old things in hopes that they could be
used again someday. Neatly tucked away waiting for someone to say the wrong
thing and then we pull out that old hurt and use it to repay them for the
damage that they did to us. Many of us are like my father, holding on to every
old hurt and pain and problem, refusing to let it go even though it has no
future purpose. Today we will look at how we can spiritually declutter our
lives.
54 When they
heard these things, they were enraged in their hearts and gnashed their
teeth at him. 55 But Stephen, filled by the Holy
Spirit, gazed into heaven. He saw God’s glory, with Jesus standing at the
right hand of God, and he said, 56 “Look! I
see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!”
57 Then they
screamed at the top of their voices, covered their ears, and together rushed
against him. 58 They threw him out of the city and
began to stone him. And the witnesses laid their robes at the feet of a
young man named Saul. 59 They were stoning Stephen
as he called out: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!” 60 Then
he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not charge them
with this sin!” And saying this, he fell asleep. (Acts 7:54-60, HCSB)
Release the Hurt
When we get hurt by someone we react in one of three ways.
We may put on a thick armor coating and refuse to allow anyone to treat us the
same ever again, we may build a shell around us and retreat into it (possibly
blaming ourselves), or we will release the hurt and refuse to be a victim of
the person that caused us the pain. The first two options are the ones that
most of us choose and they only lead to a life of hatred.
Religion and science say the same thing about hate. It only
hurts the one that has already been hurt. The person that has caused us harm
probably doesn’t care what we think. They possibly don’t even know that they
have hurt us. They may have even long forgotten that they caused us any harm.
Yet holding onto hate is like letting the person that hurt us live rent-free in
our mind.
When we hate those that have hurt us, we continue to
remember the hurt over and over and over and it only causes us more hurt and
harm and bitterness. We must find a way to release the hurt and the hate. And
the only way to be fully released from your pain is to give it to Jesus. The
Bible says to “cast all your care on Him (Jesus) because He cares about you.”
(1 Peter 5:7) Ask God to heal you from the pain.
14 Alexander the
coppersmith did great harm to me. The Lord will repay him according to his
works. 15 Watch out for him yourself because
he strongly opposed our words.
16 At my
first defense, no one stood by me, but everyone deserted me. May it not be
counted against them. 17 But the Lord stood with me
and strengthened me, so that the proclamation might be fully made through me
and all the Gentiles might hear. So I was rescued from the lion’s mouth. 18 The
Lord will rescue me from every evil work and will bring me safely into His
heavenly kingdom. To Him be the glory forever and ever! Amen. (2 Timothy
4:14-18, HCSB)
Release the Hurter
Paul is sharing here that he had been hurt as well as
deserted. He had reason to be filled with hatred for what Alexander had done to
him, but Paul understands that God will repay Alexander for his evil actions.
Paul had reason to feel hurt because of those that had left him to defend
himself, but he did not want them to be hurt in return. Paul knew that Jesus
stood with him and gave him strength throughout all his problems.
After all, grace is only grace if it goes both ways.
Receiving it from God but refusing to give it to others isn’t an option. God is
willing to forgive us for every filthy, stinking, rotten, sinful thing we have
ever done. We cannot accept His forgiveness yet refuse to forgive others. The
Lord’s Prayers says, “Forgive us of our trespasses as we forgive those that
trespass against us.” Grace demands that we forgive those that have hurt us.
How do we release those that have hurt us to God? We let God
deal with them. Neither Stephen nor Jesus looked their murderers in the eye and
said, “I forgive you.” Instead, they looked to heaven and said, “God forgive
them.” If you have struggled to forgive someone for what they have done to you,
perhaps this is the place to start. “God forgive them.”
21 Once you
were alienated and hostile in your minds because of your evil actions. 22 But
now He has reconciled you by His physical body through His death, to
present you holy, faultless, and blameless before Him— 23 if
indeed you remain grounded and steadfast in the faith and are not shifted
away from the hope of the gospel that you heard. This gospel has been
proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and I, Paul, have
become a servant of it. (Colossians 1:21-23, HCSB)
Reconciliation Is
Grace
Releasing the hurt and the hurter are only the start of the
process to experience God’s grace for our lives. We also must be willing to
reconcile ourselves with those that hurt us. That may not be possible in every
situation. We don’t expect a child that has been molested to reconcile with the
molester. Total reconciliation requires both forgiveness from the offended and
repentance from the offender. But when we practice reconciliation it helps us
understand just how much greater the grace of God really is.
God created us in His own image, yet every one of us have hurt
God with our sinful actions. Our sin separated us from God and eternity with
Him. Paul said here that God reconciled us to Himself by sending His Son,
Jesus, to die on a cross to pay our sin debt, so that we might once again stand
holy, faultless, and blameless before God. That is God’s grace.
Professor David Black and his wife spent about 2 months
every year in Ethiopia helping the church in a small village where his wife was
born to a missionary couple 60 years ago. During their time in Ethiopia they led
many of the people to accept Jesus and helped them with their medical and
physical needs. One of these was a young woman and her infant child.
One day, a Muslim teen named Mohammed went into the home of
this young Christian woman and killed her and her infant daughter because he
hated Christians. He was caught and sent to prison. Dr. Black said that not
only did this man hurt this woman, her infant, and her family, but he also hurt
her friends, her church, and him and his wife personally because they had grown
to love her like one of their own children.
Dr. Black had every reason to hate this man. He went to
visit him in prison on one of his trips to Ethiopia to confront him. At the
prison, they told him to wait in a room and they would bring him out. When he
saw Mohammed, he said, “You killed my little girl, but I forgive you.” Mohammed
was stunned. He asked how he could forgive him for what he had done. Dr. Black
explained that because Jesus had forgiven him he was able to forgive Mohammed. On
one of the many visits that Dr. Black made to the prison, Mohammed accepted
Jesus.
After Mohammed was released from prison, he came to the
little church where this woman had attended and asked them to forgive him. Dr.
Black and his wife adopted Mohammed as one of their sons. They have completely
forgiven him of what he did, released their hurt to Jesus, and reconciled with
Mohammed. That is grace.
What
can we do? Acknowledge our hurt. Release our rights. Pray for our enemies. Lean
on the Lord. Is there an enemy you need to forgive, to pray for, to do good to,
to be reconciled with? Who is it? What do you need to do? You can do this.
Grace is greater than your hurt. Just let God’s grace flow through you and into
others.
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