What Paul's telling us to grow to

Paul writes in Ephesians 4: [31] Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:

[32] And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.

I’m free from having to get even because God already got even at the Cross. That’s what I mean by, “Put it under the blood,” explains Richard Jordan.

But now I can think about it differently. I can look at and think about it the way God does because now that’s an opportunity for me to grow spiritually.

What’s the verse say? Tribulation WORKS what? Patience. Here’s an opportunity for this experience to allow the grace of God to WORK in me that I wouldn’t have if I didn’t have the problem.

You can’t forgive somebody until they offend you. So, when someone offends you, if you look at it the way God looks at it, you can say, “Thank you, I appreciate that insult, that injury, that hurt, because now I can do something I couldn’t do before! I can do what God says. I got a verse that I can obey that I couldn’t obey until you offended me.”

That’s called a renewing of your mind. You can never get there until you put it under the blood; until you, "as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you."

Until you know how God can "remember your sins no more" you’re never going to be able to do that for others. Once you do know, you can. That’s not "Can I?" but "Will I?" Will I walk by faith or am I going to stay in unbelief?

Can I tell you that self-pity will make these things live in your life. Self-pity will cause you not to be able to forget those things which are behind.

The formula for depression is an insult, injury, event plus (+) your response of either anger or fear times (X) self-pity. It equals depression every time.

Not focusing on “Why me?”, but focusing on the goodness of God to you in Jesus Christ, is the way to go. It doesn’t say the insult or injury wasn’t real, it says there’s something bigger going on in my life than all that. There’s something more valuable to me than my own self-pity. There’s something more wonderful than all of that and it’s what I found in Jesus Christ.

As you walk in that, what happens with your emotions is they’re less and less able to control you and drag you down into the depression and the “slough of despond,” as John Bunyan called it (in The Pilgrim's Progress). The less and less they’re able to control you that way.

And though you might still recall it, and have it continue to come back to your mind, you’re not going to feel the pain of the situation like before because now you have an emotional healing in God’s grace.

The answer is to keep putting together with the experiences of your life who God has made you in Christ and that allows you to put all that other stuff under the blood.

If it’s your successes . . . Listen, when you have a success in your life, you begin to get this confidence—this vain, empty confidence. The other side of success is after you begin to have tasted the success, it makes you begin to complain; it becomes food for complaints about less; dissatisfaction.

If the antidote for failure is forgiveness, the antidote for success is humility. Paul says in I Corinthians 4:7: [7] For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?

What have you got that you didn’t receive? You say, “Well, I worked hard for it.” Yeah, who gave you your life and breath and being to do it? You say, “Yeah, well, but . . .”

No “yeah buts.” Go back and read verse 7 in I Corinthians 4 and look at that verse before you start boasting.

I was on an Air Force base one time and all around the place was a sign that said, “Think Pride.” I talked to the commander of the base and I said, “You know, I would change that sign.” He asked, “What would you change it to?” I said, “Think Humbly.” He said, “You can’t fly an F-15 if you think humbly.” I thought, “I’d rather walk on the ground then.”

When you think humbly and you look at your successes, you know what it tells you they are? Opportunities to grow. I’m being successful staying with the Word.

Romans 5: [3] And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;
[4] And patience, experience; and experience, hope:
[5] And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.

When something is “shed abroad” in your heart, it just means it has access to all of you; every part of you. You can bring every part of your life under the embrace of God’s love for you in Christ Jesus.

That’s what Paul’s telling you to grow to; that’s what spiritual maturity is all about. That’s apprehending that for which you were apprehended.

That in every area of your life, you have the capacity and the determination to demonstrate the superior value that you find in Him. And can I tell you people are watching?

As you traverse around with your family, and your home, your life, they’re seeing how valuable He is to you and, as a minister of reconciliation, that’s what you’re out there sharing.

Paul ends II Corinthians 5 with: [17] Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
[18] And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;

[19] To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.
[20] Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.
[21] For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.