While hanging out here in the "Hotel Paoli" I have taken the opportunity to catch up on a few podcasts from Daybreak. The most recent one was Break Through Bitterness which talks about identifying and eliminating bitterness in your life. Forgiveness through grace being the predominate route for this difficult task. Well timed, I think. Some time ago I went through a difficult professional experience and then a month or so ago I had the chance to face one of the individuals primarily responsible for this difficulty. I found it surprisingly cathartic to shake his hand and let it go. How many more applications for this are there in my life? I think it's pretty easy to allow these things to fester under the surface and then ignore the bubbling up of the bitterness out of context. It is harder to address the issue in question directly and deal with it but far more efficacious for healing and restoring or maintaining relationships.
All that being said, one thing hit me particularly hard. John mentions the timing of this process. His summary was basically (forgive me if I don't get this exactly) When God says to forgive, He does not give a time table or add a bit about, When it is convenient, rather it is a directive to ACT. I have a few more applications for this that I am struggling to ACT on and this is pushing me to prayer in these areas.
Hey,you really spent the time down well. Weather you asked for it or not the depth and understanding you put on each passage is awesome. Thank you for sharing. Keep on pushing to be more like Christ. He is the only example for us. later BEN
ReplyDeleteHey Jim - Dan "the Powerpoint Man" here. Google Analytics showed me a link was made to our website from this blog, so I checked it out. Awesome stuff! :-)
ReplyDeleteAlso glad to see people making use of the sermon podcasts! I never hear any feedback about them, so never sure how often they're listened to.