Forgiveness

The church is a sad testimony to the world. There is so much that does not conform to the teachings of Jesus and the other New Testament writers. And, worst of all, the leaders of the numerous institutions are more interested in their reputations, membership numbers and finance than they are in the well being of “their flocks”. Their image in the media is of utmost importance.

Whilst the flock is struggling with all kinds of personal issues the leaders are preaching “well prepared” sermons that contain no life-changing message. Furthermore, when it comes to counseling they use methods from psychology studied during their “preparation for the ministry”. They counsel from the mind to the mind. But the issues of life are issues of the heart and hence are spiritual in essence. Therefore mans’ methods are absolutely powerless when it comes to life issues.

Why is it that in the church, the divorce statistics are higher than those in the world? Suicide, child abuse and poor, if not non-existent, inter-personal relationships are accepted as normal behaviour patterns. Is this the Kingdom of God that Jesus taught about? I think not.

Proverbs 4:23 tells us to guard our hearts, for the heart is the wellspring of life. In 1 Corinthians 2, Paul talks about two kinds of wisdom; human and spiritual. We know about the human kind of wisdom, but Paul says that if we do not have the Holy Spirit we cannot receive the wisdom that comes from God because it is spiritually discerned. And, only the Godly kind of wisdom has any power to bring change and healing to the human nature and emotions. The sad part in this situation is that the majority of the church institutions are founded upon humanistic principles which exclude the Holy Spirit, and are therefore powerless to help anyone.

This brings us to the subject of this article. Unforgiveness.

You have been hurt; maybe only once or perhaps many times. You have sworn never to forgive or you have tried to forgive but cannot. You can face the perpetrators and put up a brave front. But you are wearing a mask. You have to hide your true feelings because, usually those who have hurt you are close; like family members. Inside you there is turmoil. Peace evades you. Bitterness is beginning to take root. You secretly plot revenge but you just cannot bring yourself to do it. Or, maybe you have tried to, and now you feel worse than before. Never the less whatever happens you are slowly losing your grip on life. You are being consumed by all sorts of wrong thinking. At the slightest provocation, of whatever kind, you fly off the handle and then feel remorseful. What makes it worse is that you feel to apologise but cannot, and so you make excuses for your behaviour and pass the blame.

Your self image is taking a beating. To compensate you begin to act “strong” even though this is not in your nature. You begin to control and manipulate those around you in order to gain the upper hand and feel “good” about yourself. You are on a downward spiral of despair.

Listen to what Jesus has to say about forgiveness:

John 20:23 “If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.” The words “are not forgiven” are translated from the original as “holden” or “retained.” This is the same word used in Acts 2:24 where it says that death was not able to retain Jesus when God raised Him from the dead. A very powerful word; think about it.

In the Amplified Bible John 20:23 reads “if you forgive the sins of anyone they are forgiven: if you retain the sins of anyone they are retained.” Now Jesus was not giving us the authority or power to forgive sin: only God has that right. There is a far deeper problem facing us here. What Jesus was actually saying in this passage of scripture is this.

If someone sins against you, no matter what the sin, we are to forgive them. Did Jesus not also teach in Matthew 6 in the Lord’s prayer, that we are to forgive? Check verse 15 which comes after the Lord’s Prayer. Jesus said “But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” Serious isn’t it? Many people sight Mark 11:22 – 24 as the great prayer of faith. But you never hear them quote verse 25 which is the key to unlocking that faith. Jesus said “And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive your sins.”

Are you starting to get the message? Can you see the absolute power and release there is in forgiveness? Now back to John 20:23. If you are walking in Unforgiveness towards anyone then you have placed yourself in the bondage of Unforgiveness. You have retained the consequence of unforgiven sin, which is sin. You must understand that Unforgiveness is a sin. God requires, even commands that we forgive others just as He forgives our sin. If we do not forgive others we are sinning against our heavenly Father. And, furthermore we are making a mockery of Jesus’ blood that was shed for the forgiveness of our sin. Some would say, “but I do Not sin.” Well the Word says that you are a liar. Read 1 John chapters 1 and 2.

The other party lives oblivious to your predicament. It is not their hurtful actions that are the cause of your situation. No! It is your Unforgiveness towards them. Allow me to recount a true story that I was part of, and the beautiful results that God brought into peoples lives.

I was a group leader on a course teaching telephone counseling. A very important part of this course was helping the trainees to achieve wholeness in their lives. You cannot counsel from a position of “hurt.” Now you cannot coerce people to reveal incidences that have caused hurt in their lives but under the guidance of the Holy Spirit they do open up.

There was a lady in my group (let us call her Martie) that, although she said there was nothing in her past that had caused her to walk in unforgiveness, one day just decided to quit the course. She said that she was not worthy to help others. Self pity and a poor self image were beginning to show. A warning light went on for me. I asked her if we could have a chat at the end of that Saturday’s session. Martie agreed.

Before we started talking I prayed and asked the Holy Spirit to lead us into truth. Well I had hardly finished praying when she started blurting out a whole lot of things concerning her mother in law. Martie was in her late fifties and had been married for more than thirty years. Apparently her mother in law did not like her and was always breaking her down. She was never good enough. Her cooking was openly criticised in front of the whole family. Her baking was so “bad” that it was not fit to be eaten. Her home was never neat enough. And so the criticism went on and on for more than thirty years.

Now that was all bad enough, but Martie started recording all these wrongs done to her. Yes, she kept a black book in which she had recorded the dates and the things had had been said about her. What is more she kept reading through these things to keep them fresh in her mind. She became in her mind what her mother in law thought of her; a failure. This was amplified by the fact that her mother in law had influenced her two sisters in law in the same way. She now had three people breaking her down. All these incidents were recorded in her little black book. This was another mistake. 1 Corinthians 13 says that love does not keep a record of wrong things done to us. This was only compounding the problem. Martie’s behaviour was outside of God’s law of love.

The Word of God says we are to love our enemies because love covers over a multitude of sins. The Word also says that no weapon used against us has any power to harm us when we walk in God’s love; and perfect love castes out fear. This poor woman lived in fear of the times when the families would get together.

Now I knew her husband and he had nothing but praise for his wife. Everything he had to say was nothing but praise for her, but she could not accept it. She was a failure in her own eyes.

But worst of all she had built up bitterness and resentment towards her mother in law and two sisters in law. Martie was trapped in that downward spiral.

By the time she had finished sharing all of this with me she was sobbing her heart out. I sensed that the Lord was busy doing something in her. I then shared John 20:23 with her and explained that the only way to be released from this situation was through forgiveness. But she had forgiven them she said. She had prayed and forgiven them. She had even written it all on a sheet of paper, handed it over to the Lord and then torn the paper up and thrown it away. Nothing changed.

There is a good reason why that never worked. It is simply that, it is not the way the Word says we are to deal with these matters. Jesus said, “If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother, then come and offer your gift.” Matthew 5:23 – 24.

Then Jesus goes on to say in verses 25 – 26, “Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still with him on the way, or he may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. I tell you the truth, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.”

Now let us apply this to our real life story above. When we have anything like bitterness or unforgiveness in our hearts we cannot worship God. Worship is the gift of our lives that we offer to God. We first need to put those things right before we can truly worship in spirit and in truth and connect with our heavenly Father. Our wrong attitudes cause a separation between us and Him. Jesus instructs us “to go” and set things right. We are to take action and do something about it. If we do not go, then our adversary (Satan) hands us over to the judge (our minds and emotions), who hands us over to the officer (demon), who throws us into prison (the negative condition of our minds).

Can you see how we place ourselves in this prison? This “prison” is that hopeless state we find ourselves in and is brought upon by not setting things right as soon as they occur; things like harbouring grudges and bitterness. The “last penny” that we have to pay is the action that needs to be taken to set the issues right. That demon will continue to torment our minds with a negative bombardment of accusations until we have paid the price of seeking reconciliation; that price is humility.

You see, when Martie never attempted to set these issues with her mother in law right, her mind gave the demonic forces the power to torment her. That is why Jesus said that we are to settle matters “quickly.” Do not give the adversary the opportunity to mess with your mind. The scriptures say “do not let the sun go down on your anger: do not give the devil a foothold.”

But Martie was never taught how to deal with conflict situations. Now do you understand my opening statements concerning the condition of the so called church? Knowing all about the prophecies in the book of Revelation and how they relate to the book of Daniel will not help you one iota when you are facing issues in your life. Church leaders are too busy impressing their congregations with their “knowledge” and not teaching them about dealing with life issues. The congregations are caught up in pampering the pastor, molly coddling the minister and pleasing the priest. No one is really seeking God for His plan and purposes for His church.

Sorry, let me apologise for that statement about the leaders. They don’t know any better. That is what they are taught in their colleges and universities. They studied the letter of the law without the help of the Holy Spirit and the Bible says of itself that the letter kills but the Spirit gives life. It is only in the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit that lives are transformed, not in being bombarded with humanistic knowledge. They dissect the Word (the seed) until there is nothing left to plant in order to bring forth life. A seed must be planted whole to produce life.

Back to Martie’s story. She agreed to obey God’s Word no matter how difficult it would be. Martie’s mother in law and her two daughters lived very far away so it would not be practical for her to go and put things right. I suggested that she write letters in which she should ask forgiveness for harbouring a bad attitude towards them, without mentioning their offense.

This may seem strange to you as they were the ones who had sinned against her. Correct but, remember John 20:23, Martie had retained the consequence of unforgiveness towards them! She wrote the letters and to her amazement she received prompt replies by telephone. All three said no, they were to blame and asked her forgiveness. Much crying and reconciliation. God is faithful and as the scripture says, “He watches over his word to perform it.”

Martie was totally set free and went on to complete the course, and became an excellent telephone counselor. Guess what the problem was that her very first caller had? Right! Unforgiveness. Martie was able to counsel out of her very own life experience and God’s faithfulness. Bless the Lord. Glory.

If you are struggling in the same area then read the scriptures above and ask the Father to give you the grace to apply His word. James says that it is the doers of the Word that are blessed. Do it and watch the miracle that God our Heavenly Father will do in your situation.

I know that there are skeptics out there who would say “impossible, years of hurt just cannot be healed that fast.” They are right; when it comes to humanistic counsel and tablets. But when we trust in a miracle working God and the power of His Word the impossible becomes possible. Bless His Holy Name.

May the Lord bless you in your search for the Truth.

If you need help in this area please feel free to contact me; jack@tcitfh.co.za.

With love,

Jack Viljoen.

The Church in the Father’s Heart.

jack@tcitfh.co.za

http://www.tcitfh.co.za

P.S. Ephesians 4:32 – 5:1 and 2. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children, and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

The Church of my Dreams

The priests would harvest the grain as the sun rose at the beginning of the Passover weekend. The grain would have to be crushed as it was ground to be made into the unleavened bread. It was then made into dough and baked into a loaf. Later at the meal this loaf was broken.

Today it symbolises the body of Christ that believers share in Holy Communion. Many different denominations have various ways of going about it but the symbolism remains the same. The wine represents the blood of our Saviour and the bread His Body. But what is this Body really? Many of us have experienced the blood of Christ and His forgiveness in our lives. He has reached down and plucked us out of darkness and restored our spirits. There are countless testimonies of His faithfulness and love all over the world and there is no doubt that The Holy Spirit is working in the hearts of people, drawing the broken to Himself and showing the way to Jesus, the only True Hope and real Love!

But what about the Body that was broken. Like millions, I have found His Blood and forgiveness in my life. He is my Saviour and Friend and I am so grateful for His Grace and Love! But what about the Body that was broken… The hands and feet of my Saviour? The ears to listen to my daily battles and struggles, my joys and victories? Someone to pray with and help me through experiences that they have already been through? Someone with faith when I am doubting? Where can I find that? The Body I find is dressed as the world, trying to make themselves appealing to her, to lure her and be like her. The body is perverted, serving the desires of man for greed and power, the lusts of the flesh, money. Where can I find the pure body that is living a life of sacrifice, crushed for the good of the whole, mixed together with ingredients, the water of the Spirit and kneaded together with the grace and love of the Father? A body where the grains of wheat no longer have an identity but only the whole nourishing life-giving loaf is displayed for all to see. The broken and resurrected Body of Christ.
 

I believe this Body is supposed to be us. Believers. Look at the New Testament. They taught each other from what they had learnt through their walk with the Lord. We’re supposed to be living letters read by all. Older women and men are supposed to teach the younger. Compassion and love should be flowing to the broken hearted. How many broken hearted are still among us?
 

We are that loaf, that Body of Christ. We have or are being broken, pride crushed in the work of the Holy Spirit. Self ground till it is unrecognisable, like the wheat into flour. Then grace and mercy are lovingly kneaded into the brokenness. In the fire of the Spirit, Jesus’ forgiveness, unconditional love and acceptance bring forth a whole loaf, ready to be tasted by all. We are that loaf. The loaf that is broken daily. His mercy has worked that wholeness into our lives for the good of the body, for all to taste. My experiences of Gods grace and forgiveness are like food to other believers. But just as we all need food daily, we need to feed from that broken, resurrected body in each others lives daily and collectively. That fresh bread of Gods work is going stale.

I have been walking with the Lord for many years. Yet I am still hungry. I am hungry for that daily bread. To feed from the Broken, Resurrected Body of my Saviour in His Body, Us. I am desperate. I ask Him, “How long Lord?” This is a lonely road and I don’t believe it was meant to be like that. We can walk alone. He said that His Spirit would be with us always and without that I would die. But looking at Paul and our New Testament brothers I see a life that was shared, “the fellowship of His sufferings”. This life was a joy to them in their dull existence of simply trying to find work in order to put food on the table. Sure, there was conflict and disagreement but their pride, like the wheat, was continually crushed and new loaves of grace came out in the lives of the believers as those things were submitted to the Spirit. Taste and see that the Lord is good. We are his hands and feet to serve those in need, to touch the broken hearted.

I am not talking about the structure we know as organized church. I see very little crushing going on and sharing in one another’s brokenness and the resurrection work that He has done in us. In most cases pride, position, money and power are the order of the day. The sheep sit in the pews looking and waiting longingly for their Shepherd, longing to eat of the Body of their Saviour. I am looking for the growing, thriving, organic, Body of Christ where I can be a part of that flour that is kneaded into the whole for the good of all. I have been broken and Gods unending Grace, which I am so grateful for, has come and restored me. I need to share this with others and share in their experiences. I long for that but it seems wherever we meet, people are following their own desires, lusts and plans. 

Where is Jesus? Where can I meet and discuss Him, His Love, His Grace, His daily working in my life. Where are these believers who are broken and have abandoned all to be kneaded into the whole loaf and become one, without individual identity, but a powerful unity, having only one Identity: Christ. Sharing in His brokenness, His suffering and also in His resurrection. Experiencing His grace, daily together. Only Jesus, together. Is that possible? I believe it is. I just haven’t found my loaf yet…

Come Lord Jesus, come!

With much love,


Jack.

God’s Love and Grace.

Human love can never endure the test of time. Actually when one looks around at the world today, real love is difficult to identify. Human love is often expressed in material ways. The giving of things is supposed to mean “I love you”. This expression of human love often hides the real motive and there is no real unconditional giving. Even the physical and sexual side of relationships have been counterfeited as the real thing.
As human beings we have been raised, most of the time, to believe that love comes as part of a reward system. If you perform in this way then I will love you and prove it with this gift. If you step out of line you step out of my love. If you don’t live up to MY standards then you don’t deserve my love. Human love is in most part granted on achievement. Human love is based on feelings and sentiment. Human love is a happiness hype. Human love is selfish and soulish. It resides in the emotions and that is why it needs to be fed. The self must be elevated. If you really loved me then… manipulative.

Human love is self-seeking. Another word for this is lust, not only the sexual kind but the lust of wanting, wanting for the sake of self gratification. Lust takes but love gives.

God so loved… that He gave. Which kind of love do you think God extends to us? In ancient writings different words were used to describe the different kinds of love. In Greek we have the words agape, phileo and eros. Most people know the third one. Well here is the meaning of each.

- Agape: seeking only the benevolence of others. Unconditional. Expecting nothing in return.

- Phileo: brotherly or social love, friendship.

- Eros: physical or sexual love.

Jesus said we are to love one another as He loves us. How does He love us? He showed us the Father’s love and then demonstrated it. He never considered Himself. He spent Himself for others. He only gave, gave, gave. Never asking anything for himself in return. Unselfish. Selfless. Sacrificial. He could not do anything else because He is God and God is love. Even when they hung Him on that cross He thought only of the good and said,”Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing”. Remember that He had the power of the entire universe at His disposal. He could have done anything but He chose to forgive. That is LOVE.

When human love is put to the test it retaliates (reacts) in different ways. None of them good. Certainly there is little or no grace extended to the “offender”. LOVE COVERS A MULTITUDE OF SINS. The word “covers” means that when some one says or does something that is hurtful, not only do we not retaliate but we also do not even mention it to any other person. In other words we do nothing that will in anyway break down that person’s character. How then do we deal with the hurt? Firstly we forgive. Forgiveness is an act of love and the more intimate our relationship with our Heavenly Father is, the easier it becomes to truly forgive. This is possible for us because God is continuously pouring out His love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. The veil of tradition begins to crumble in the presence of God’s love. When that veil is taken away we come to realise that it is only by His grace that we are able to forgive others as He has forgiven us. Grace is God’s unmerited favour extended towards us because of His love. The greatest act of love ever was God giving His son to die, in our place, to pay the price for our sin.

God’s grace is powered and motivated by His love. It is part of His character. God is Love and love is God. HIS LOVE IS TOTALLY UNCONDITIONAL. That is something that we cannot come to grips with. Unconditional love. It is this unconditional love that overflows into grace.

Love,

Jack Viljoen.

Just to say hi!

Hi all, I am new on the blog scene.

I am 63 years old and married to Kathryn who is 32 years old. We have two beautiful daughters Sarah almost four, and Hannah who has just turned two. We live in Centurion in South Africa.

The purpose of this blog is to interact with people who have a deep desire for an intimate relationship with God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We, that is Kathryn, and I are seeking to get involved in house church.

We believe the true body of Christ will be able function as our heavenly Father intended it to only when His children have the liberty to worship Him in complete simple faith. In spirit and in truth. No traditions or prepared liturgies. To live a lifestyle worthy of the calling of our Lord and Saviour. No hypocrisy. Real and honest; a genuine testimony to His love, mercy and grace.

There are many people who have been hurt by the church and others. They have dropped out and are no longer serving the Lord. They once again need to be brought back into the fold and nurtured. Also to understand that the Father is not interested in them going to church but that He desires a relationship with them as they are. Outside the walls of the Christendom of the church.

Please do not misunderstand. I am not angry or hitting at the church. Hey, I was in "full time ministry" for many years, but I have seen the light and want people to be set free. Let the churches continue, as many come to know about the Lord there. But they really need to know the real life that Jesus has called us to.

Bless you,

Jack Viljoen.