Category: Spirituality and Truth

How can you know whether unforgiveness is eating you alive? Here are some warning signs and some ways you can reverse course:

1. You’re experiencing bursts of anger

 

If you’re struggling with unforgiveness, you’re likely bottling up your anger. Oftentimes, the person who is the recipient of the inevitable outburst is not the person who caused the stress or pain.

What to do instead: Be mindful when you start to feel anger building. Be aware of the source. If you catch yourself in the middle of an outburst, it’s never too late to do an about face. Apologize to the victim of your outburst. Take a deep breath. If you can, spend a few moments alone.

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14 Warning Signs That Unforgiveness Is Eating You Alive (And What to Do About It)

“Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.” ~ Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

You think you’re over it.

You pretend everything is ok.

But something isn’t quite right.

You have trouble sleeping. You can’t stop thinking about what happened. You can’t seem to move on.

We have a hard time forgiving people, some more than others. The reason is because many of us have faulty notions of what forgiveness is in the first place – like receiving an apology or being reconciled with the person.

We may not want to admit it, but sometimes when we’re looking to offer forgiveness, we want it to be because somebody else conceded first. But what you’re waiting for may never happen, especially when dealing with toxic people.

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LISTEN, THERE’S NOTHING–NOTHING–THAT CAN SEPARATE YOU FROM GOD’S LOVE.

If you’re feeling confused by what you hear out there in the world, listen to God. He can remind you in his spirit, in his word, in his song. Here’s one for itunes, for example: I am New by Jason Gray.

Verse snippet:

Too long have I lived in the shadows of shame
Believing that there was no way I could change
But the one who is making everything new
Doesn’t see me the way that I do
Who I thought I was
And who I thought I had to be
I had to give them both up
Cause neither were willing
To ever believe

I am not who I was, I’m being remade
I am new
Dead to my sin, I’m coming alive
I am new.

Let’s pray for the spirit to help us walk in the purity of the Lord. He remade us, and we can trust that.

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LET’S TAKE IT RIGHT FROM THE BIBLE

The apostle Paul gives it to us straight:

In the past I spoke against Christ and persecuted him and did all kinds of things to hurt him. But God showed me mercy, because I did not know what I was doing. I did not believe.

But the grace of our Lord was fully given to me, and with that grace came faith and love that are Christ Jesus. What I say is true, and you should fully accept it: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of who I am the worst. But I was given mercy so that in me, the worst of all sinners, Christ Jesus could show that he has patience without limit. (1 Tim 13-16)

Read Romans, read Galatians, read Ephesians, read Corinthians… Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. Read where you feel called to read. It’s all there. Read the Bible.

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GOD DOESN’T HAUNT US, HE LOVES US.

Jesus didn’t come to judge the world; he came to save it. (John 12:47).

I write this, and I also struggle to remember this at times, which requires going by faith. Could someone love us so much as to forgive all our sins? Yes, without a single doubt. God wants us… he knows us and loves us. He gave His son for us. Sin that has worked in our life is not who we are. It does not belong.

Have you entrusted your soul to God? Then you know the good news: Your soul has been washed clean by the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen!

Nevertheless, if you’re feeling haunted by the past, these three questions could help protect your focus:

1. Do I believe the world, or do I believe God? (Who is more powerful?)
2. Did I pray about it?
3. What does the Bible say about it?

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Feeling Haunted by the Past?

Just when we’re having that beautiful sunshine day, in floats a cringe-worthy thought from the past. How did I do that, we think quietly–maybe even regretfully–while temptation smiles and adds one point to the score board.

Ah, you sneaky devil.

The temptation we feel to worry about the past plays on the thought that, well, … that was me. The keyword phrase to pay attention to, however, is at the end of that last sentence: that was me.

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The Solution to Our Self-Obsession

Seeing the cross rightly crushes our pride decisively. Why? Seeing the cross rightly means that we see ourselves rightly. We see him on the cross and conclude that we are actually seeing our sin on the cross. The cross reveals what we deserve from God. We cannot receive the grace of Christ apart from seeing and embracing the undeserved dis-grace of Christ.

We see the cross rightly through the miracle of conversion. We were blind to the glory of Christ on the cross (2 Corinthians 4:3–4), but God’s grace is stronger. When Christ is proclaimed, God overcomes our spiritual blindness by flooding our hearts with light. The eyes of the heart are opened to see and savor the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4:6). The Spirit acts like a floodlight to illuminate the work of Christ on the cross.

The Bible’s answer to our fallen self-obsession is a great work of grace in the gospel that creates a worshipful obsession with God. Pride is defeated decisively at conversion, progressively in sanctification, and totally at glorification — where we experience ever-increasing, everlasting, white-hot worship of God. The day is coming when God alone will be exalted. It will be the worst day for unbelievers and the happiest day for all Christians.

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Two Crash Sites

The collision between the glory of God and the pride of man has two possible crash sites: hell or the cross. In other words, either we will pay for our sins in hell or Christ will pay for our sins on the cross. Hell is like an eternal crash site and crime scene. It is a horror movie in which there are no closing credits because it never ends.

God opposes pride actively and hates it passionately, which means that pride is spiritual suicide. The reason is simple. Pride is on a collision course with God himself and the date is set. “For the Lord of hosts has a day against all that is proud and lofty, against all that is lifted up — and it shall be brought low” (Isaiah 2:12). All must be torn down so that one thing alone may be left standing. “The Lord alone will be exalted in that day” (Isaiah 2:11). The Bible calls it the day of the Lord.

But God in his mercy made another way. The Son of God emptied himself by taking on humanity and humbled himself by obeying to the point of death — even the death of the cross. God sends his Son to vindicate the worth of his great name, which sinners have defamed. The sacrifice of Christ fully absorbs and satisfies the wrath of God. This glorious aspect of the atonement is called “propitiation” (Romans 3:24–25).

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Think of Yourself Less

Maybe some of this will make more sense if we talk about what real humility is. As C.S. Lewis said, true humility is “not thinking less of ourselves, but thinking of ourselves less.” We can spend a lot of time thinking less of ourselves but we only end up thinking a lot about ourselves. The problem of pride does not boil down to whether we think high thoughts or low thoughts about ourselves but that we think lots of thoughts about ourselves.

Humility is fundamentally a form of self-forgetfulness as opposed to pride’s self-fixation. Humility can set you free because when you think about yourself less you are free to think about Christ more. Humility puts us on the path of grace; pride puts us on the path of opposition. God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble (James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5).

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Several Shapes of Pride

If pride is preoccupation with ourselves, then we cannot defeat pride by becoming preoccupied with how we are doing against pride. When we do, we play right into the hands of pride because we take a page out of pride’s playbook. Think about yourself more. Obsess more. Become preoccupied with how you are doing — how the fight is going.

You can fall into self-exaltation (takes credit for success) and self-promotion (put those successes in other peoples faces so they will give us credit for them). But pride can shift into the shape of self-degradation and self-demotion when we beat ourselves up for our failures. We are still obsessed with ourselves. In the first form, we are obsessed with our successes; in the second, we are obsessed with our failures.

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