It Starts Small

Yesterday was a wonderful Sunday! I have the privilege to get to attend two services over the weekend. A church in Texas and a church in Colorado. Technology is wonderful! The church in Colorado is teaching 1 Corinthians. Yesterday’s message was over part of 1 Corinthians 6. You can see it HERE.

Forgiveness was a pivotal part of my journey. Not causal forgiveness, but deep spiritual forgiveness. I struggled with it in the beginning. I knew unforgiveness had bound my heart up in an awful root of bitterness. I struggled because I did not want to forgive my offenders, to be honest. To me it was like saying it was somehow okay the awful things they had done to me. I did not want to pay their debt they owed me. My heart, because of the bitterness, wanted revenge. I wanted them to hurt as bad as they had hurt me physically emotionally and spiritually. Then the Holy Spirit led me to remember something that changed my entire heart towards those people.

³⁴ Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, because they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided his clothes and cast lots. Luke 23:34

I had this sudden moment of grief. I wept because I realized as Jesus spoke these words, he was suffering on the cross. He was not concerned over His own suffering, but those who stood there and would stand there in the future and mock, abandon, blaspheme, refuse and reject Him. I imagine what Jesus saw as He looked down from that cross. He did not just see the physical bodies in front of Him, he saw me in the midst of that crowd. He saw you. He saw all of us….even those people I could not forgive.

….because they know not what they do.

The words kept echoing in my head. People know what they are doing. They either have the Holy Spirit to convict them of wrongdoing, or they have a demon encouraging them and feeding them to do more and worse. The difference, the Holy Spirit reveals the gravity of the depravity. Evil, keeps a person blind and encourages them to do worse. Someone who does not have the Holy Spirit can not see the depth of sin and how it destroys not just a person, but families, marriages, personal relationships, business relationships, the body of Christ, and our communities. Why?

¹⁴ But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
1 Corinthians 2:14

The natural man, a man or woman who has not received Christ as their Savior, can not understand or see the depth of pain and suffering sin causes, not do they care.

I dawned on me that day that these people, who caused horrible pain and suffering truly did not understand what they were doing. They were blind to knowing the depth and ripple of sin they had committed. I was in the middle of studying the book of Jude, lead by the teaching of Adrian Rodgers and the Love worth Finding Ministry. I had heard the term apostate and wanted to make sure whatever it was, I was not. God’s Word is MY mirror to look at myself and allow Him to bubble up my impurities and transform me.

¹⁷ But you, dear friends, remember what was predicted by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. ¹⁸ They told you, “In the end time there will be scoffers living according to their own ungodly desires.” ¹⁹ These people create divisions and are worldly, not having the Spirit. Jude 17-19

Until this point, I was a pretty dumb and naive person. I assumed that all professed Christians, were Christians. I mean who would really dare profess this and not be? I would assume evil would not want to be identified as the very thing they are trying to destroy. Pretty naive to think, and today I shake my head at what false religion will get you think. There are indeed, people that walk among us as professed christians, who are not.

¹⁵ “Be on your guard against false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravaging wolves. ¹⁶ You’ll recognize them by their fruit. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes or figs from thistles? ¹⁷ In the same way, every good tree produces good fruit, but a bad tree produces bad fruit. ¹⁸ A good tree can’t produce bad fruit; neither can a bad tree produce good fruit. ¹⁹ Every tree that doesn’t produce good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. ²⁰ So you’ll recognize them by their fruit. Matthew 7:15-20

There was something I had to come to terms with that day:

There was possibility the people standing before me (in my mind that I had to forgive) were not truly born again, redeemed christians. When I thought about the fruit of their lives, it was clearly before me that they did not walk in the Spirit (Matthew 7:15-20). If they did not produce fruit of the Spirit but professed Christ as their Savior, was it possible they were what Jude described, Apostates? If so, Jude writes, and the Spirit they do not have (Jude 17-19.) If the Holy Spirit is not within these people, how could they possibly understand the gravity of their depravity? They can not.

My heart was instantly struck with sadness. I sobbed for a long time when this realization came. My heart was instantly struck with something, a sadness I can not describe. All this time I had thought they were fellow brothers and sisters and should have known better, but they did not. I waited for decades for these people to have that conviction to ask for forgiveness for what they had done. But, how can they ask to be forgiven if they do not have the Holy Spirit to convict them?

This was the turning point in my own relationship with Christ. To realize the gravity of my own depravity. To understand the depth of sin and how it was destroying me, my marriage, my family, my job, and would touch my community and the body of Christ through a testimony of unbelief, fear, doubt, anxiety, depression, bitterness.

In those moments of sobbing over these people I realized the depth of what Jesus had said, Father forgive them. I could do nothing more but pay the debt of these people. Forgive them because as I stood in that crowd and Jesus asked for my forgiveness, those people stood in that crowd with me. We all stood in that crowd on that day.

My heart had a major transformation that morning. I started to see people as Christ saw them. With compassion. A type of love I never knew could exist. I looked at those people and one by one, forgave them. Not because they deserved it or because I was commanded to, but because my heart broke for them. They needed what I had been so desperate to find. They needed to know the depth of love Christ has for all of us. As Christ does, we must also do and we can only do as Christ does when we give Him complete reign over our lives.