I intend for this title to be a play on words. According to a survey conducted by George Barna, the most helpful book written after the Bible is Purpose Driven Life, by Rick Warren. The first words of the first chapter read, “It’s not about you.” Honestly, this is one of those messages I recite to myself quite frequently when I am in one of my selfish, prideful moods.

However, sometimes it is about me.  Here’s what I mean. I was sitting in church last week preparing to take communion. The pastor was speaking on, among other things, the need for conviction and confession. As he drilled down into each topic, I was trying to pray for conviction and trying to confess, but my mind kept going to other people in my life. Maybe you have thought this: “I wish so and so could hear this message.” In other words, they are who really need to hear this. Then I would tell myself to stop it, that I needed to pray for conviction in my own life and not worry about anyone else. That is between them and God, and this is between me and God. This monologue was repeated in my mind for the entire sermon. My mind wanted to remember someone else’s sin, someone else’s need for conviction, someone else’s need to confess. I would try to put that out of my mind so that could focus on my need for cleansing. I tried to pray as David prayed in Psalm 51:

¹ Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions.
² Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.

³ For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.
⁴ Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge.
⁵ Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.

⁶ Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb; you taught me wisdom in that secret place.

⁷ Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
⁸ Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
⁹ Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity.

¹⁰ Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
¹¹ Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.
¹² Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

It’s the same way with forgiveness. We want to be forgiven. We expect to be forgiven. But do we always truly forgive? When the offense continues to replay in our minds, maybe we haven’t totally forgiven. When we say we have forgiven, but we still think ill thoughts about that person, have we truly forgiven? The Bible is clear on this point.  In fact, I think that it is very intentional that the passage on dealing with sin in the church (Matthew 18:15-20) is sandwiched between two other passages.  Matthew 18:12-14 reads:  “What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off?  And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.

Jesus made it personal. He made it about you, and me.

And then in Matthew 18:21, he tells the parable of the unmerciful servant: Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.”

Jesus went on to elaborate by telling about the master who forgave the debts of servant #1 who owed him. But then servant #1 did not likewise forgive the debts of a fellow servant #2 who owed him. Instead, servant #1 had servant #2 thrown in prison. When the master found out, he had his servant #1 tortured until servant #1 did repay his debts. Jesus explained in verses 32-35, “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to.  Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

Jesus says we must forgive to infinity, as my granddaughter likes to say. He uses similar language in the Lord’s Prayer, “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” (Matthew 6:12).  

Jesus made it personal, and he made it mandatory. Forgiveness is clearly taught; when there is a problem between believers (fellow servants), then we (me and you) must take the initiative to forgive and reconcile. If you and I can’t forgive those who sin against us, how can we expect Jesus to forgive you and me? It is about us, sometimes. For more insight from Rick Warren, click here.

This “me” work is hard work. Satan wants to distract us from this work at hand by taking the pressure off us and making us worry about someone else’s guilt and sin. I pray that you and I can be diligent to pray for conviction and to confess our sins daily. This is where relationships begin, when we come clean before God. And know that while it may be difficult for us to confess and to forgive on our own, nothing is impossible with God. Pray for intervention from the Holy Spirit. This is God’s will, so He will surely answer our prayers if you and I sincerely pray.

Create in me a clean heart, O God.

In Christ,

Judy

Or: Lord, you expect me to do what?

I am learning a painful lesson. As background, my husband Jim typically is one to creatively use any tool to make work easier. As a result, he manages to get more done more quickly and with less effort. By comparison, I’ve always been one to power through in most any situation, and I’ve been fortunate to have the physical health and endurance to do what I needed to do. You might say he works smarter, and I work harder. Not sure why that is, but it just is, at least until now. About six weeks ago I fell and dislocated my shoulder, breaking a bone in the process. It’s taken me all that time to get most of my range of motion back, and now I am working on my strength. Because I don’t want to slow down, I’m taking some cues from Jim on working smarter. For example, I am using a wagon to haul dirt for my garden rather than just dragging a bag of dirt around the yard.

The fallacy to my approach is that, as strong and/or stubborn as I am, there are going to be limits to what I can do, with or without a bad shoulder. I’ll give you another example. Years ago I went with our church youth group on a working mission trip. One of my team’s projects was to replace the valley on a woman’s roof. (Yes, I was the team lead; yes, I told them I didn’t know anything about construction! And no, I didn’t know what a roof valley was, much less how to replace it.) I was leading a team of teenagers who knew less than I did, and were sufficiently intimidated at this point to admit it. I was holding back the tears as I looked at this woman’s roof and our pile of tools and roofing materials without a clue what to do, feeling like a failure before we had even started.

A little later on that first morning, one of the roaming construction managers stopped at our worksite, and through God’s grace he actually had a construction background and was local (we were in North Carolina). Just so you know, most of the construction managers were not local, and many of them didn’t have much more construction experience than I did. We were very fortunate to have him assigned to us. He looked at our dilemma and advised that we start on another part of our assignment (insulating the floor, which is another story all together). When our team came back bright and early the next morning, the roofing job was already completed! Because the construction manager was local to the area, he was able to call a roofing buddy to come over and complete this job before he went to work at his real job. I had been so upset because I was not able to complete an assignment, but at that moment I realized that in my inadequacy, God was able to work a miracle and accomplish what I could not do on my own.

All of my misery was because of my own pride in my ability, my strength. Always before I had been able to power through on my own strength. In this case, God provided the solution, and accomplished what I could have never done on my own.

It’s like so many stories in the Bible when God’s people faced insurmountable odds. Times like when Joshua was instructed to take the city of Jericho, one of the most heavily fortified cities in the then-known world. Or when David faced the giant Goliath, or Saul, or a myriad of other enemies. Or when Elijah was hiding from the most wicked Queen Jezebel. Or when Esther, a young Jewish woman in Persia, was the only hope against looming genocide of her people.  And the list goes on.

One of my favorite verses is Joshua 1:9 – “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” These were the words of God to Joshua as he was leading his people against Jericho. God had also spoken these words to Moses, and Moses to Joshua. David repeated them to Solomon when he gave him the instructions to build the Temple. When the nation of Judah faced Assyria, King Hezekiah encouraged his people with these words, taken from 2 Chronicles 32:6-8; 21-22:

He appointed military officers over the people and assembled them before him in the square at the city gate and encouraged them with these words:  “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or discouraged because of the king of Assyria and the vast army with him, for there is a greater power with us than with him. With him is only the arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord our God to help us and to fight our battles.” And the people gained confidence from what Hezekiah the king of Judah said…. And the Lord sent an angel, who annihilated all the fighting men and the commanders and officers in the camp of the Assyrian king….So the Lord saved Hezekiah and the people of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib king of Assyria and from the hand of all others. He took care of them on every side.

When Paul was imprisoned toward the end of his life, he wrote this to the Christians in Philippi: “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:13).

I pray that when you face seemingly insurmountable challenges, you will lean on God and rely on His strength. I pray that you will remember and be encouraged by these words: “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

 “Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the LORD Almighty” (Zechariah 4:6).

Our God is powerful. He is faithful. He loves you.

In Christ,

Judy