I believe that I must state in the beginning of this preachment hour that LETTING GO IS A CHOICE NOT BECAUSE IT FEELS RIGHT, BUT BECAUSE IT IS RIGHT! Often I hear people say, "I cannot forgive him because he hurt me to badly." What they’re saying is simply "I cannot voluntarily commit to forgiveness because I cannot emotionally get over the hurt." But forgiving and forgetting cannot be done emotionally until it is first done voluntarily.
We say, "If I felt it, I would act it," but Scriptures teaches, "If we act it, we will feel it." Paul acknowledges his struggle to become everything Christ intended when he reached out and touched his life. The apostle reminds us that we must concentrate total focus and unrestrained energy on dealing with the past before progress can be made in the journey of towards tomorrow. How powerful is his declaration, "But one thing I do." What is the one main thing he has committed to do? To forget those things which are behind, as verse 13 states.
In the second chapter of Revelations, Jesus the Bridegroom reprimands the Ephesian church, His bride, for falling out of love with him. In the three-point prescription for her sickness, He tells her "Remember, repent and do." Not a word of emotion in this passage. There is nothing the bride is told to feel, but there are three things she is told to do, "Remember, repent, and do again her first works; in other words, she is to act as she once did. It is in the doing that emotion thrives.
David is a marvelous example of a conscious choice to let go of the past. After the birth of his son, David lay prostrate on the floor fasting and praying for eight days and nights pleading with God for his son’s life. God chose not to answer David’s prayer. When the servants came told him, "The boy is dead," David did not rise up in anger, curse God, and refuse to be consoled; but as a mature believer, he made the choice to go on with his life. Second Samuel 12:20 says, "Then David got up from the ground. After he had washed, put on lotions and changed his clothes, he went into the house of the Lord and worshipped. Then he went to his house, and at his request they served him food, and he ate."
As human beings, we consist of three parts:
-- The mind -- the seat of knowledge, where we know.
-- The heart -- the seat of emotion, where we feel.
-- The soul -- the seat of the will, where we commit.
Turning loose of the past is never possible in the realm of the emotion. If you wait until you feel like forgiving, you will never forgive and will suffer the consequences. Forgiving is a choice of the will that you make in your soul.
I also think I need to tell you, REMEMBER THAT GOD IS NOT ACCOUNTABLE TO US, BUT WE ARE ACCOUNTABLE TO HIM.
Beneath the fruits of an unforgiving spirit is often a root of bitterness and anger against, Truth be told, many of us have never come to terms with the fact that we are really angry at God, whom we feel could have prevented catastrophe but did not. Casting blame on God for human acts has its beginnings early in human nature. Adam essentially blamed God for his fall when he said, "The woman you put here with me -- she gave me some of the fruit from the tree, and I ate it " (Gen. 3:12). The inference is clear: "God, it’s really your fault. Had you not given me this women, she could not have given me this people and I would not be in this fix."
Let me tell you a very sad story. A man in East Texas lost a very successful business due to the oil bust of the mid-1980s. Forced to move to Houston and start again, both he and his wife took new jobs - he as a gas station attendant and she as a secretary. In the office, she met a man, had an affair, and divorced a loving husband. Today he is still angry with God. How often have people hear him say, "Had God prevented the price of oil from going down, this economic tragedy never would have occurred; we never would have moved to Houston, and I would never have lost my wife. God it’s your fault." Perhaps you never have identified it, let alone articulated it, but just beneath your bitterness toward another person may be a layer of bitterness toward God, whom you blame for allowing it to happen in the first place.
After Job’s great loss, his wife said, "Curse God and die." Job’s answer was, "Shall I take good at the hand of God and not ill as well?"
It is often said the purpose of the book of Job is to answer the question, "Why do the righteous suffer?" But the book ends without answering the question. The purpose of Job may well be to say that you don’t have to know why you suffer. Job affirmed, "Though he slay me, yet will I rust Him." His was the mature response to the suffering of a believer.
Scripture does not promise that we will ever know why we suffer here. Surely in heaven we will understand, for we shall know as we are known. But until then, the issue is not God’s explanation to us, but our response to him. Never does our light shine as bright to the glory of God as against the backdrop of our darkest hour of suffering.
I also think I need to tell you to NOTHING ANYNE HAS DONE TO YOU CAN COMPARE TO WHAT YOU HAVE DONE TO GOD. When it seems impossible to forgive another, remember how much greater wrong has been forgiven you. For one sinner to sin against another is a relatively small thing, but to sin against a holy God is an unfathomable thing. If God has forgiven you for so much, then whatever you forgive against a fellow sinner is relatively small.
In the 18th chapter of Matthew, Jesus tells the story of an unjust steward. Servant was forgiven a debt of ten thousand talents by his king, whose compassion spared him and his family the humiliation of imprisonment and slavery. The forgiven man found a fellow servant owed him one hundred denarii, but the forgiven refused to forgive his brother and cast him into prison with his family. The king was s angry that he cast the man who would not forgive into outer darkness. Could it be that a man will not forgive goes to hell? Could it be that one who does not understand forgiveness has never been to the cross and knows not our Lord at all? When you have trouble letting it go, just remember that you, too, are a sinner, and that nothing your fellow man has done to you can compare with your sin against a righteous and holy God.
I want to tell you in the closing moments of this preachment hour, FOCUS NOT ON WHAT YOU HAVE LOST BUT ON WHAT YOU HAVE LEFT. When the elder brother complained that the father had killed one calf from his herd to feed the penitent prodigal, the father replied, "Son, everything I have is yours." All the cattle, herds, and flocks belonged to that elder brother. How could he have been so bitter over the loss of one head of cattle when hundreds or even thousands remained? The elder son’s anger seemed to have centered on the father’s welcoming home the prodigal. But the father’s love response indicates a deeper problem he knew all too well.
It is indeed possible to act our way into new thinking when we voluntarily choose to let it go. And we reinforce that commitment when we also choose to think our way into new actions. The father’s plea to the elder son was, "Son, forget about one lost calf and rejoice in a thousand cattle that are not lost." The apostle Paul reminds us, "Whatsoever things are lovely, virtuous, pure and of good report, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things."
Learn to focus on what you have left, rather than on what was lost. Perhaps it was a job, a possession, or even a precious child, but you may well be letting your unresolved bitterness so negatively affect you that you are damaging the spiritual and emotional health of those close to you. Focus on the great people they are. If you have the Lord, your family, and your health, little else matters. Rejoice!
