Two Kinds of Prayer or two types of prayer times

The Lord tells us to have a special "quiet time" with Him daily, and to pray constantly throughout the day. The difference between the two is that during your special time of prayer (often done just before or after bible study time) it's just you and the Lord and your full concentration and attention is on Him, and Him alone. Generally this time is more intimate, a time when you share your heart with the Lord; your most private thoughts, your hopes and fears, wants and needs; and when He shares His heart with you. (It's because He also shares His heart with us during this time that this is often done just before our bible study time, as that's how He speaks to us.)

Then, when you pray constantly throughout the rest of the day, you're doing so as you're doing other things...be it cleaning house, caring for children/grandchildren, working in your garden, shopping, at work, at school, visiting with friends or neighbors, etc. During that time, obviously, it's not just you and the Lord, as all kinds of other stuff is going on around you that you have to pay attention to. So your attention isn't fully on Him, but instead you're simply sharing what's going on in your day with Him.

Both types are needed to develop your relationship with the Lord.

Again, you can relate it to an earthly relationship, same thing goes for that kind too. If you're in love with someone, you want to spend time alone with them, so there's no outside interference; it's just the two of you alone, enjoying each others company, sharing your hopes and fears, and getting to know each other better and better. But we can't be alone with them all the time, so the rest of the time we just chat with them when we can, and it's usually not about personal stuff, but rather about every day things, like "did you take out the trash today?" or, "do you know where the ruler is?", or "would you please shut off that TV!" lol That kind of interaction is needed too though as it helps you continue to know one another better and how you each react during a busy day, and how well you can trust each other to remember things that are important, do the things that are important, etc.

Without both kinds of communication, we're keeping part of ourselves apart from God, a part He wants to share with us and not developing or experiencing the awesome and close relationship we can have with Him. It's like a person who's afraid to have someone love them so they only allow the person to get "so close" and then begin pushing them away. That's what we do wen we don't have both kinds of communication with Him.

It's really a shame too because that's what the Lord has been desiring to have with us since the beginning. It often breaks my heart when I'm studying or reading the old testament to see how very often our Father tried to get the people to have a real relationship with Him, and they just kept refusing. Like after the Exodus when He told Moses to gather all the people together and He would speak to them; but the people said "no!" They were too scared, and not really all that interested. As far as they were concerned, it was just fine with them for God to talk to Moses and then Moses could tell them what He wanted. They weren't interested in talking to Him or hearing from Him themselves. After all, that would make them different just like Moses was! (i always cry when I read that part...I imagine the Father standing with His arms open wide, eager to embrace His children, that He just rescued from slavery, and every one of His children, turned their backs and walked away. ) That story is in Exodus 19-20; Deuteronomy 5, and Hebrews 12:18–21.

When the Lord talks about "knowing us" or "calling us by name", He's talking about the kind of relationship where everything is shared...both the intimate times of sharing what's in each others heart and the times of just sharing our day with Him. That's similar to what He's talking about when He says to "abide in Him", "live in Him" or "walk in Him." I guess you could say it's the difference between having Him as a well known acquaintance, like you might know a co-worker, and knowing Him intimately, like you would a husband or wife; or the difference between knowing all about Him and really knowing Him; the big difference is between head knowledge and heart knowledge. I think that's part of the reason He uses illustrations of marriage so often when referring to His relationship with Israel or with us; and the illustration of adultery when speaking of those who have abandoned Him for the world.

When we really stop and think about it...what an extraordinary privileged we have! The creator of the universe, the God who formed our bodies and gave us our intelligence and talents etc. is the very same God who came to this earth and gave up His life so that we might spend eternity with Him. All because He loves us - not as some impersonal "group" of homo sapiens, but as individuals! And He loved us even when we were at our very worst, drowning and wallowing in a pit of sin and evil.

Nor does He loves as as we might love a lower life form, like a cat, dog or bird or fish. No matter how much we might love them, we would never literally make them our children and leave our inheritance to them! (not if we had a sound mind anyway - what would they do with a dishwasher, microwave, dishes, vacuum, computer, TV, car, and money???) But God loves us that way! He loves us so much that besides creating us, He quite literally, and legally makes us who have His children! It always reminds me of what John said: 1 John 3:1 —How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! * That could just as easily be translated, "what an amazing, fantastic, love the Father has for us" or "what a peculiar, out of this world kind of love the Father has for us", etc. John's run out of words to describe it, just like we do!

And this God who loves us so very much, so far beyond what we can even comprehend, isn't satisfied with just knowing us intimately...He wants us to know Him intimately! That is just truly incredible! Like when He walked in the garden with Adam and Eve every day, talking to them, loving them, teaching them; that's what He wants with each and every one of us. That's why He wants us to spend both private time with Him every day as well as continue to share our day with Him throughout the day. It's incredible!

He wants to walk with us and be with us. He loves us and tells us He will never, ever leave us, and that absolutely nothing can separate us from Him anymore because He is greater and stronger by far then everything and everyone, including us. So He calls us to know His Heart, which is contained in His Word, and tells us that through these two kinds of prayer and knowing His Word, we can really know Him. It's really mind boggling, isn't it? And yet still today, people do the very same thing Israel did. They turn their backs and walk away, saying, they'll just listen to what He's said to someone else instead of hearing from Him themselves; or just walk away and completely ignore Him. It breaks my heart all over again.

As you can probably tell, I think about this alot...I can't help it...the Lord has freely given us such a fantastic, unbelievable privilege of knowing Him intimately, it makes me want to stand up and sing and shout His praises!

LiveJournal Tags: abiding,amazing,fantastic,God's heart,heart,incredible,intimate,knowing,living,love,loving,prayer,sharing,talking,walking

Forgiving and Forgetting, the Lord's way

I did a study on Forgiving awhile ago, but it's quite long so I thought I'd try and condense it for those who don't have time for the longer studies. However, if after reading this, you would like more information, the bible verses about it etc. please go to the above link for it's a very good study...even if all you read is the 1st post, you'll get a lot out of it.

To start with, we're to forgive others the way the Lord forgives us. That means we need to go to them and tell them how they sinned and then if they repent, tell them they are forgiven. We also need to let them know that means we won't bring up the sin to them, to others, or even to ourselves again or ever use it against them, for that's how the Lord forgives us. Just knowing this little bit bring us all kinds of questions!

Why should we go to them, shouldn't they be coming to us? Well, yes, they should, but the Lord commands us to go to them just as He commands them to go to us and confess and repent, so ideally both parties should be on their way to each other right away. It rarely works that way though, so the Lord says, we're to go to them if they haven't already come to us. It helps if we understand the Lord's reasons behind His commands. His command to us that He tried to drill into our heads over and over is to love one another, and for unity in the body of Christ, so this is all about reconciliation. For the body of Christ to work the way the Lord intended, there can't be hard feelings between the various members of it. I'm not talking here about the members of a local church, but of the whole body, which is all who've been saved.

That bring up another question...what about those who aren't saved? What do we do then? The Lord never forgives us until we repent and then we become saved. Before then we really don't understand about sin, repentance or forgiveness and what it really means. So with the unsaved, we can only offer them a shallow portion of what we give each other when we forgive. But, in so doing, we're at the same time giving them an example of what being saved is all about and it can give us a great opening too to talk to them about the real deal...about salvation in Christ. We can explain to them that we can forgive them for ourselves, but that we can't forgive their actual sin for only God can do that, and for that they need to recognize that they need a Savior, etc. We can explain that when we forgive, it also means we won't bring the sin up to them, ourselves or others ever again or use it against them in any way, just as the Lord does for us when He forgives us and saves us. This can plant many good seeds the Lord can use to bring them into His Kingdom.

But, do we have to forgive someone who's not saved? Yes, God still commands us to forgive them. His reasons for this are similar, for we're commanded to love them as well as other believers, though for a different reason. First because we don't know that they won't one day be a believer and our brother or sister in Christ. Only the Lord knows that. Therefore the Lord doesn't want things coming between us and them that might stand in our way if/when they do become a believer. Secondly, He wants us to represent Him to them, so we're literally to be Him to them, act as He would, speak as He would, forgive as He would. Of course this is to hopefully bring them into His Kingdom one day. The Lord knows that because they are unbelievers though that forgiveness and reconciliation won't always be possible. That's why He tells us regarding unbelievers, Romans 12:18 —If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. * Therefore we're to do all we can to live at peace with them.

All of this can be difficult but it seems the most difficult part is that we usually don't "feel like" forgiving them, whether they're saved or not. Yet, the Lord never tells us to do something that's not possible, so how do we deal with this? First we have to realize that our feelings have absolutely nothing to do with it. Seriously, they don't! We often do things we don't feel like. Every morning I used to have to be up no later then 6 so I could be at work by 7. When that alarm clock went off, I sure didn't feel like getting up, but I did, and I surely didn't want to go to work, or feel like it, but again, I did. Day after day. It's the same thing with forgiveness.

I never asked anyone if I'd truly gone to work that day since I hadn't felt like it that morning when I'd awakened, and yet we constantly find ourselves asking if we really forgave someone since we didn't feel like it when we did it and our feelings for them hadn't changed. The answer to that is simple. Of course we forgave them! (assuming we forgave the way the Lord forgives us anyway)

Part of the reason our feelings about the person haven't changed though is usually because we didn't really forgive them the way the Lord does us. We left out the part about not bringing the matter up to them, to others, or even to ourselves again. That's the clincher! And how in the world do we do that???? Again, the Lord tells us how. Obviously the Lord can't and doesn't really "forget" our sins. He knows everything, and if He literally forgot them, then He wouldn't know everything and that contradicts His Word. What He means is that He doesn't think of our sins; He doesn't dwell on them, He doesn't hold them against us, even when we later repeat the same sin again. And that's exactly what He requires us to do. He calls it "taking our thoughts captive and making them obedient to Christ." (2 Corinthians 10:5 ) There is a short teaching about this subject here if you need to know how to do this: Taking Thoughts Captive it does take self discipline, but it's what the Lord expects of us and it will change us to be more like Christ in more ways then I can begin to count here. Basically, what it means is that whenever we find ourselves beginning to think about (or speak about) what happened, we literally stop the thoughts/words before they go any further, reminding ourselves of our promise and that the Lord has done this many times for us. Since we have broken our promise, we then need to ask the Lord's forgiveness. Because of our sin nature, at first we'll find ourselves thinking of it quite often or wanting to think about it anyway, so we'll constantly have to take those thoughts captive and replace them with God's Truth as described in the thread I mentioned. The more we do this, the less often it will happen, until eventually we will find that our feelings will begin to reflect the feelings of our Lord instead of our old sin nature. Eventually those old feelings will be entirely replaced with those of love from our new nature that's like the Lord. This is what makes true forgiveness and reconciliation really possible.

So remember, our feelings, don't matter as far as whether or not we can forgive or have forgiven. They will eventually begin to reflect the truth though the more we keep our thoughts in line with the Lord's when the matter does come to our attention.

When we forgive someone, it's a big deal, and something major happens in the spiritual realm and for the person being forgiven as well as for us. Giving or receiving forgiveness is not something that should ever be done lightly or without prayerful thought, which it often seems to be these days. Forgiveness is something we do out of love for our Lord to be obedient to Him; so we offer the offender a gift...not because they earned it by repenting, but because we love the Lord.

It's very different from the world's way of "apology". When people apologize, they don't have to confess any sin or even admit why they're really sorry. They could simply be sorry they got caught or that their reputation might suffer or for other consequences of what they did. They don't have to recognize that God has anything at all to do with it even. They're not promising you anything at all either. That doesn't mean however that we should never say we're sorry, but we should be aware of the difference between the two.

As I said at the start, I realize this doesn't cover anywhere near all the questions concerning forgiveness and forgetting concerning both the saved and unsaved, but I hope it gives at least a glimpse of how the Lord wants us to forgive and why. And of course, I hope it helps others as it has me in my own life.

For more information see:

Understanding Forgiveness and Forgiving

Taking Thoughts Captive

LiveJournal Tags: 1 Cor 6,1 Corinthians 12:26–27,1 Peter 2:23,1 Peter 4:8,2 Corinthians 7:8–11,apologizing,apology,bible,bless,body of christ,choice,choices,command,confess,Confession,discipline,enemies,enemy,Ephesians 4:32,Ephesians 5:1–2,feelings,forget,forgive,forgiveness,forgiving,friends,god,James 2:13,lord,Luke 17:1–10,Mark 11:25,Matthew 18:17–20,Matthew 5:44–48,Matthew 6:12,Matthew 6:14–15,Matthew 7:1–5,Micah 6:8,Philippians 2:3–5,Philippians 4:8,pray,promise,promises,Proverbs 17:9,reconciliation,remember,repent,repentance,Romans 12:14,Romans 12:17–21,Romans 12:18,salvation,saved,self control,thoughts,unity,unsaved,victim

How to find God's Will When You're Experiencing Trials

How to find God's Will When You're Experiencing a Problem, Going through a Trial, being tempted, or whatever you may be going through.

Whenever we have a problem we have to deal with, we need to ask ourselves, "how does the Lord want me to handle this?". We may have other questions too such as "why" it's happening, or what we should or shouldn't do about it.

To get your answer to those and other questions, you go to your bible to find out how God wants you to handle it. Most importantly though you pray and ask the Lord to guide you as you look through His Word to see how He wants you to respond to your current situation. Why? Because that's how the Lord speaks to us today. While He's perfectly capable of speaking to us with His voice or in other ways, He generally speaks to us through His Word, so when we need to find an answer, that's where we need to go to talk to Him. Otherwise the only answers you're libel to get are a nudging to go to His Word or silence.

I'm going to pretend that the problem is co workers harassing you at work. Another word for someone that's harassing us is persecute:

Persecute means:
To oppress or harass with ill-treatment,
To annoy persistently; bother.
to subject to harassing or cruel treatment,
to oppress, torment, frustrate, harass, etc.

If you have a "concordance" or "index" in your bible, look up the word, "persecute" If not, you can use an online bible and search for the word on it. Not every verse with that word in it is going to be what we're looking for, but it's a good place to start and it's pretty easy to weed out the ones that aren't going to be helpful.

What you'll want to do is read the ones you think may apply to your situation, but you need to read them "in context" and not just that particular verse. If you only read that verse you'd miss a lot of what God has to say to you about it..

Just to give you some good ideas of words to look up when you're having a problem, going through a trial or something like that, let me give you some common words that are always good to look up during these times. You can also use these words to look up if you don't get enough information on the word you choose to look up first:
suffer
enemy
trouble
test
discipline
trial

Or you could look up a word or words that you notice show up a lot in the verses you already found. In the ones I'll list for you, you'll notice the word "perseverance" shows up a lot, so you could look that word up and see what other verses with that word in it say.

Since we're pretending you're being persecuted, I've looked up the word "persecute" in the New Testament, and I've picked out the ones that I think are the most helpful for us.

Remember, when you're doing this on your own, you need to read them in context too so you know how God wants you to respond and why. For that reason, I'm going to include verses that either come before or follow the one with the word persecute in it for you here.

As you read each scripture, you'd ask yourself the following questions:
A. What God is saying to you about how you should handle your situation now,
B. What you should expect or why
C. What He will do for you.

Some of the scriptures won't have all three of those in it, but answer as many of those three questions as you can for each scripture.

I've chosen 7 scriptures for our pretend problem. All you have to do is choose scriptures that looked like they might have something to do with what you're going through. I'll post the ones I chose here so you can see why it's important to read them in context. Obviously when you look up the scripture, you'll first read the verse with that word in it, but then look both back before that verse and after that verse to see what's pertinent to your situation now. (Remember, you're looking for the answers to those three questions I posted above as you read the following scriptures)

1. Matthew 5:44–47
44 But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?

2. John 15:20
20 Remember the words I spoke to you: ‘No servant is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.

3. Romans 12:12–21
12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. 13 Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.
14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. 16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.
17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. 18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19 Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. 20 On the contrary:
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”
21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

4. 1 Corinthians 4:11–13
11 To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. 12 We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; 13 when we are slandered, we answer kindly. Up to this moment we have become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world.

5. 2 Corinthians 12:7–10
7 To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

6. 2 Thessalonians 1:4–10
4 Therefore, among God’s churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring.
5 All this is evidence that God’s judgment is right, and as a result you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering. 6 God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you 7 and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. 8 He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power 10 on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.

7. 2 Timothy 3:12–13
12 In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, 13 while evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.


Having answered the 3 questions or as many as you could for each scripture you read, you would now do the following:
1. Make a list of steps that you can take to do what God wants you to do about this.

2. Considering everything you've learned now, write down what you think the Lord may be either trying to teach you or help you practice.

3. Ask the Lord to help you respond to this problem the way He's now shown you that He wants you to.

Now that you are all done, all your questions should be answered, and you now know exactly what the Lord wants your attitude to be and what He wants you to do. The most important part of this entire process though is that we should be talking to the Lord about it asking His guidance before we look up the verses, while we're looking them up and studying them and after we've done so. We need to remember that He's right there with us, guiding us and that most of all, He wants to talk to us through His Word and make it personal to us. This way we not only get our questions answered, and answered correctly, but we also become closer to our Lord. This is how the Lord wants us to get our answers for right after talking about trials, He tells us:

James 1:5–8 (NIV)
5 If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. 6 But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.

I hope this helps someone.

LiveJournal Tags: actions,applying scriptures to your life,attitude,bible,every day help,god's will,help with problems,practical help,scripture,struggling,temptations,trials

The last days for the Church - us - doesn't look too good.

The last days for the Church - us - doesn't look too good.

We've talked a lot about false teachers, cults, false prophets etc and how there are so many false teaching these days. We've talked about the great lie and how many unbelievers will be deceived by the antichrist during the tribulation. We often talk about how unbelievers are deceived. But we haven't talked about something that's become quite obvious to me lately.

If you read 2 Timothy 3:1-9 and other scriptures like it that talk about what it will be like during the last days, there's one thing that seems to escape our attention...who is being deceived. It's the Christian's Paul's talking about here, not unbelievers! That's why they'll "have a form of godliness but deny it's power". It's part of why Jesus asks if He will find anyone with faith when He returns. (Luke 18:8) Yes, unbelievers are deceived - but then they've always been deceived. That's nothing new at all and certainly not noteworthy enough to warn us about. What is important enough to warn us about however, is that there will be many deceived Christians during our time.

I'm seeing this myself more and more the closer we get to the end of our age. Why now more-so then before? Simply because the end of the Church age draws near, at which time Satan will finally be allowed the power he so desperately wants. We know that, but we haven’t really thought about what it means to us. We see how Satan’s stepped up his programs and his schemes in every area of life in the news every day and talk about it. But we’re strangely silent about what he’s done to the church over all this time, except the false teachers and teachings.

He’s caused the world to fear death more then ever; to where people don’t like to even think about it much less talk about it. He’s also convinced the vast majority of people that death is the same for everyone – you just have to read one of the numerous near death experience books that have been published lately to learn that. The big things on people’s minds besides money is to look and feel younger no matter your age and no matter what you have to do to attain it. Anything to stave off death awhile longer. Right in line with that comes the world of medicine and all that they offer to help people “look and/or feel younger”. They have a pill for just about everything. And, if you’re one of those folks that don’t like to take medicine or don’t trust it; that’s ok, they’ve got so called “natural supplements” that will do the same thing only better for you!

When people are finally forced to think of death, when they have to attend a funeral, what do they hear? Do they hear a minister speak of the life to come for those who are saved and what will happen to those who aren’t? Very, very rarely! Usually they hear some junk about how the person will be another angel watching over their loved ones, and they’ll all live happily ever after – and that will be said over the worst criminal that has never known Christ except as a swear word!

Why is all of that so important today? Because this is the end. It’s the end of the age of Grace, the age of the Church and most of those who are saved don’t have any idea of what’s going to happen to them next or why! At the most, some might know about the rapture, but that’s about it for most folks. Many Christians seem to have the erroneous idea that everyone will be the same in heaven, no one will have more or less and that God won’t care about anything we’ve done or not done here anyway. All that’s going to be over, right? I’ve even heard Christians ask why they should bother studying the bible when they’ll know it all when they get to heaven anyway! Another erroneous idea from Satan, that we’ll all suddenly know everything. I feel tempted to explain that one as it’s one that’s been widely accepted, and show the scriptures that show this isn’t true, & explain the ones that people think “prove” it, but I’ve done that in a number of studies on the board already and that’s not what this is for, so I’ll refrain from that for now.

God is calling His Church to get ready! He’s been calling to us for quite some time now. I’ve said that over and over here many times. I’ve felt it deep in my soul and in my bones. Many of the things that Satan has beguiled the unsaved with, he’s also used against the Church. The vast majority of Christians, those truly saved, don’t know their bibles. They rarely if ever read them, much less study them. They’re much too busy with what they perceive as “life”…going to work, raising their children, doing the shopping, cleaning the house, and everything else that has to be done every day. In fact, their lives don’t look very different from the lives of their unsaved neighbors. While all those things do need to be taken care of, they should never come before or between us and our time with the Lord.

The bible tells us even in the Old testament that deception will rule during this time, and it tells us why, but really, it's as plain as the noses on our faces. It's because God's children don't know Him or His Word. They say they know Him (have a form of godliness) but they can't know Him or His Will well, if they don't know His Word.

I'm talking about people here in the US and other so called "civilized" countries where His Word is freely available to everyone. I'm not talking about people who live in some bush tribe somewhere that don't know how to read, and have never heard of a bible. God can save them too and they can get to know Him, though not as well as we can who have His Word.

The Lord tells us that from those who've been given much, He will demand much; (Luke 12:48 b) and we've been entrusted with His Word. I don't think there's anything more important then that. Therefore, He says much more will be asked of us. But that doesn't seem to bother most Christians for some reason. I can't for the life of me figure out why. Do they somehow think that the Lord is going to tell them, "Well done good and faithful servant" when they haven't opened His Word and studied it regularly with Him? Or do they think He tells everyone that regardless of whether or not they've obeyed Him? I was going to say they can't be reading the same bible I do if they think that, but then most aren't reading it at all, much less studying it.

Satan has lulled Christians to sleep and somehow gotten them to believe that it's not necessary to study His Word, much less do so daily, even though we’re commanded to do so. (See 2 Timothy 2:15 for starters, after which there are so many more scriptures I’ve never tried to count them all.) They think that if a bushman in the jungle can do without God’s Word, then so can they, but God doesn’t work that way.

I know Satan's scheme to do this included churches like the Catholic church who told the people they shouldn't read it for themselves for so long, but you'd think that since the reformation when Christians died for the privilege of reading God's Word, that lie wouldn't hold any water anymore. I know Satan's scheme has also included telling Christians that they can't understand God's Word by themselves, and that it's hard to read, which is yet more lies. I've seen that Satan is so determined to keep God's children away from His Word, that he uses deception, confusion, and distraction, (three of his favorite tools) not only about God’s Word, but about or with friends, family, and other members of the body of Christ, causing strife, to stop people from getting into God's Word.

If you read 2 Timothy 4, you see again that it's Christians that Paul is talking about, not unbelievers. Christians that don't want to hear the Truth. They don't want to hear God's Word period. Instead they want "self help sermons" on how to get rich and make it in this world. They want something short and easy to read. Quick, simple answers. They're not interested in really digging into God's Truth and studying it. Because they don't really study God's Word, but at most read "proof texts" their favorite authors give them, they're deceived.

So how to Christians become "lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—"? (2 Timothy 3:2–4 ) By not reading and studying God's Word daily. It's that simple.

Amazing isn't it? How simple it really is for someone to turn their life around...study God's Word with Him daily and become more and more like Him; for His Word restores us, renews our minds, replacing Satan’s lies with His Truth, sanctifies us, makes the simple wise, gives us discernment, joy and so much more. And how simple it is as well, to walk about instead with a form of godliness but denying it's power, because we haven't studied His Word.

God is calling His Church to get ready! He’s been calling to us for quite some time now. I’ve said that over and over here many times. I’ve felt it deep in my soul and in my bones. Time was running short and I did my best to try and get people to open their bibles and study. With each passing month and year, it seemed as though there was even more pressure on me to try and get people to study their bibles. There’s a battle going on right now. A battle for the minds and hearts of those who are really saved. Satan doesn’t want anyone to be ready when the Lord calls us to come to Him and he’s putting everything he’s got into stopping us. The Lord is calling us to be ready because He’s coming to get us very, very soon. Time is shorter then ever now. Honestly, it feels like the door is starting to close (or open depending on how you look at it). There’s not much time left. Please Church! Get Ready! Don’t let Satan stop you!!! I beg you! Open that Bible and study it every day with the Lord you will be spending eternity with. No, there’s not much time left, but with the Lord as your teacher, time doesn’t matter. What matters is that we be obedient and do it!

Revelation 19:7–8 —Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. *Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.” (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints.) *
John 8:31–32 —So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, *and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” *

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LiveJournal Tags: 2 Timothy 2:15,2 Timothy 3:1-9,2 Timothy 3:2–4,abusive,Age of Grace,battle,Bema Judgment,bible,boastful,brutal,catholic church,church,Church Age,conceited,confusion,deceive,deception,devil,discernment,disobedient to their parents,distraction,false teachers,false teaching,fellowship,forgiveness,form of godliness,get ready,god's will,god's word,hearts,holy spirit,John 8:31–32,joy,judgement,judgment,judgment seat of Christ,knowledge,life,lovers of money,lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,lovers of themselves,Luke 12:48,Luke 18:8,makes the simple wise,minds,not lovers of the good,proud,rapture,rash,renewal,renews our minds,replacing Satan’s lies with His Truth,restoration,restores us,Revelation 19:7–8,sanctifies,satan,slanderous,strife,time,treacherous,unforgiving,ungrateful,unholy,warning,without love,without self-control,world

Forgiveness and Forgiving 5

There's one thing I forgot to cover that we're expected to do before we forgive someone. Remember that when we forgive someone, it's not just a nice saying; something actually happens when we forgive. The burden of guilt is actually lifted from the persons shoulders so that we can be reconciled with them. So before we forgive them, we should have prayed about it asking the Lord to give us a forgiving heart and to give us His Words to speak to the person so that true reconciliation can occur. We should never depend on ourselves when we need to forgive someone, but always ask for God's help. We shouldn't wait till the last minute to talk to God about this either. This should be the very first thing we do when we realize that someone has sinned against us. I know I've posted this before, but will post it again here, as I copied a little prayer about this that to me was just perfect to use as a model for my own prayer:

O God, give me a heart of forgiveness, so that I may commune with You in the fullness of fellowship and joy and not experience the chastening that comes when You don’t forgive me because I won’t forgive a brother or sister in Christ. May I remember that for everyone who sins against me I have sinned multiple times against You, and You have always forgiven me. At no time has any of my sin caused me to forfeit my eternal life; therefore, no one else’s sin should cause them to forfeit my love and my mercy toward them. Amen.

We will be talking more about how God will punish us by treating us the same way we treat someone else that we should have forgiven, later.

Ok, what about unbelievers? What do we do about them? Remember, we're to forgive the way God forgives us and since forgiveness always starts with belief and faith in Jesus, unbelievers cannot truly be forgiven. What we need to do now is see what God says about how we are to treat unbelievers. I'm sure you can think of a number of things the Lord tells us about unbelievers, but I want to start with a general statement that defines our attitude toward them: Romans 12:18 —If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. * Of course, the "everyone" in this command includes unbelievers. This verse points out that there may be times when living at peace with others isn't possible and that's most likely when it involves an unbeliever. I love this verse because it again shows us that God doesn't expect us to do the impossible and that what He does expect of us, He enables us to do. This verse lets us know that we need to be realistic about people and realize that we don't live in an ideal world where everyone is going to get along well together all the time. This is something I have to remind our members about in the apologetics forum. It can get pretty rough in there and because we're believers, we tend to automatically expect other people to act with the same morals and values we do. But when you're dealing with an unbeliever, you can't expect that!

Unbelievers are the exact opposite of what we are. We're God centered and growing more God centered, while they're self centered and growing more self centered. When we were saved, the Holy Spirit came to dwell within us and poured out His love in our hearts so that we could love Him and others with His true love and not the worlds false kind. Because we have His love in our hearts, we're able to love others, even unbelievers with His love and that too is something that the Lord increases in us as we continue to grow. But an unbeliever doesn't have God's love in their hearts because they weren't saved and they don't have the Holy Spirit within them. Without that, they cannot love God or other people in ways that are acceptable to God, nor can they understand our values, morals and way of life because they can't understand the Bible and don't really want to. Like God says, they can't please Him. They're incapable of it, just as we once were. That's why God tells us in this verse that He wants us to live at peace with others "if it's possible". He knows that with unbelievers involved in a relationship, that may be difficult at best and at times impossible.

Next God tells us that we are the only one that can be counted on to do right in a relationship with an unbeliever. That makes sense when we realize that the unbeliever is incapable of even understanding our morals and values much less living them.

I know that about now everyone is probably thinking, "but wait, I have a friend that's not saved and they're good people...they don't cheat, lie, steal, or murder and they are good parents to their children etc. I'm sure you do, I know people like that too. There's a big difference in why we act the way we do and why they act the way they do, and that difference is foundational to everything they are and we are. I'm not going to get into this now though as it would take way too long and this isn't what we're studying right now. For the purpose of this study then I would ask you to simply accept what scripture says about unbelievers, and we can certainly look into this more when we're done with this one if you want too.

Let's look at how the world handles it when someone does something the world considers is wrong. Usually if someone does something wrong and they value the relationship with the other person, they'll admit what they did and apologize for it. Remember, I posted a little about apologizing already. Let me quote parts of it here in case you missed it:

Quote:
Now, about "apologizing". Apologizing is the worlds substitute for forgiveness.

Saying your "sorry" and actually repenting of sin are two very different things. Someone can simply be "sorry" they got caught, or sorry they're going to have to pay the consequences of their sin, in fact they may not even believe in God or sin. If they do, they can even just be "sorry" that they're going to be in trouble for not doing what they knew they were supposed to do. They don't hate the sin, they're just sorry about it. All they're doing when they say they're sorry is telling you how they feel. They're not even telling you why they feel that way, which as I just showed could be for many different reasons! They aren't promising anything or doing anything about the sin when they say they're sorry either - as with repentance which means that they hate the sin and won't do it again and then they ask forgiveness and a promise is given that the sin won't be brought up again.
Let's look at the difference between godly sorrow and worldly sorrow over a wrongdoing (sin).

2 Corinthians 7:8–11 —Even if I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it. Though I did regret it—I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while— *yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us. *Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. *See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done. At every point you have proved yourselves to be innocent in this matter. *

One kind of repentance comes from God and leads to life so there's no regret in having confessed and repented of the sin, but the other kind comes from the world and leads to death. There's two obvious examples of both kinds of repentance, Peter and Judas. Judas repented, was full of regret, the worldly way and killed himself, whereas Peter repented, also full of regret, weeping, and then assuring Jesus of His love accepted His forgiveness and went on determined not to sin that way again.

If we look closely at the two different ways of repenting, we see that one is self centered and one is God centered. The world's way if obviously the self centered one. Unbelievers repent, or "feel badly" that they did something wrong for selfish reasons. They might be sorry they got caught, or sorry they have to pay the consequences of the wrong, or sorry that someone else found out about it, or sorry about what it'll do to their reputation now, or how it might affect their personal life, business life, etc. or what they may have to give up or not get because this happened, or they may be sorry that it will affect their friendship. That sounds close to what we might feel, but it's really not. They're sorry because of the loss to themselves, not because of the hurt to the other person. For the unbeliever, it's all about them.

For us, it's all about God. We're sorry because we've hurt our Lord, or displeased Him in some way and desperately want to make it right.

As you can see from this, there is simply no way that the unbeliever's repentance is nothing like ours and won't lead to the same good results. So it's up to us to do our best to find a way to settle things so that we can continue to live in peace with them.

Before I get into exactly what to do with an unbeliever, let's take care of our own hearts. God says we're to forgive them, so there must be a way we can do so, even though they can't really repent. The way we do this is by forgiving them in our hearts. This is how we are told to deal with a great many sins against us so that we're not constantly running to other people to rebuke them. (I heard that sigh of relief! ) BUT, in the cases of serious sins against us, forgiving them in our hearts does not let us off the hook. We still have to rebuke them and forgive them to their face if they repent.

Let me show you what the Bible says about this.


1 Peter 4:8 —Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. * This is actually a quote from

Proverbs 17:9 —He who covers over an offense promotes love, but whoever repeats the matter separates close friends. * So the only sins we need to actually confront someone about are those that love can't keep covered up. Or in other words, when it is in the other persons best interest to be told about their sin because if we do not do so it would break our fellowship with them. Just as God doesn't pick on us for every single sin we commit every day, neither should we pick on other people for their sins. We see this in parenting and in marriages too.

All this means then is that when a person sins against us in a way that perhaps hurt our feelings but that we are not going to allow to break our fellowship with them over, we forgive them in our hearts, by going to God in prayer about it. We go to the Lord and tell Him that the person hurt us and we don't want to have any bitterness or resentment in our hearts toward them because of the sin, and ask Him to help us with that. Then we simply tell God that we because we love them, we forgive them for their sin. That's it. It's not forgiveness like we'd grant to someone who has committed a major sin against us, but then they don't need that kind of forgiveness as it's not a big deal. Let me think of an example...

Sometimes I say things I don't mean. Especially when I'm in a lot of pain. I tend to snap at my husband then and can get quite mean, using a mean tone of voice, although I don't mean to. I try hard not to let that happen, but sometimes when the pain's really bad and I've been trying to hold myself together for a while for the sake of my grandchildren, when they leave, out of relief that I can now "relax" and take my pills, I'll have let down my guard and will slip up.

Like one night when the kids and grandkids had been here visiting all afternoon and for supper, I was in really bad pain and trying hard not to show how bad it was. I could barely walk. They knew I was in pain...I couldn't hide that and wasn't trying to. I simply didn't want to cry in front of them as that would upset the little ones, and I was about to do so by the time they left. so I walked them to the door as did my husband and once they were outside and out of the range of my voice, I mentally "relaxed" my control. At that moment all I was thinking about was making it back into the living room so I could sit down take my pills and not move for at least an hour.

Bruce said something to me asking why I'd done something earlier. I don't remember what. But whatever it was, instead of calmly telling him why, I acted like he should be able to read my mind and know why, and snapped at him and while I don't remember anymore what I actually said, it was probably something along the lines of, "because I'm stupid, that's why!" implying that the only reason he brought it up was because he thought I'd done something wrong or that I shouldn't have done at all. Of course that wasn't true at all and I knew that and instantly repented; but before I could even say anything, (he was behind me) he came closer to me and gently put his arms around me and ignoring my snide remark, simply said, "your back is really bad now isn't it?", which brought on the tears which then flowed even heavier because of the pain.

That my friends is a beautiful picture of love covering a sin. His love for me, knew that the words I'd spoken weren't from the real me and that I didn't mean them and that I loved him too, so he simply forgave me in his heart and covered my sin with his love. And that's what we're to do with most of the sins that are committed against us. We simply love the person enough that the sin doesn't matter and we tell the Lord we've forgiven them or even ask Him to forgive them as well if we feel that's appropriate. I'll have to cover the way we deal with the unbeliever when they must be confronted tomorrow.

Proverbs 10:12 —Hatred stirs up dissension, but love covers over all wrongs. *

Ephesians 4:32 —Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. *

Ephesians 5:1–2 —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. *

Forgiveness and Forgiving 4

I want to talk about our feelings as they regard forgiving others for a moment, as we so often think we can't forgive someone if we don't feel it or don't really want to. Let's really look at that for a moment. Do we do that with other situations in our life? I remember when I was working and the alarm clock would go off in the morning, I did NOT want to get out of bed What I felt like doing was rolling over and going back to sleep! I don't ever recall laying there and trying to decide if I "could" get up since I didn't "feel like it". No, instead, every morning, in spite of how I felt, I'd get up, get dressed and off to work I went. Nor did I feel like a hypocrite for doing so and I seriously doubt if anyone would have said I was - if only because they probably felt the same way every morning.

The kind of job I had was taking care of disabled and or elderly adults. That meant I had to do some things that are just plain unpleasant to put it mildly. Most of us have changed a dirty diaper on a baby, but i had to change dirty diapers on adults, and had to clean them up after they had had an accident in the bathroom. I remember one time in particularly when that had happened and the person was so embarrassed and humiliated by it that they'd tried to clean it up themselves, but because of their disability and all, what they actually did was spread it all over everything including themselves. It was quite literally all over the floor, walls, toilet, sink and all over them. It was the worst mess I've ever seen, and I had to clean it and them all up and do so in such a way that they wouldn't be embarrassed even more. I most certainly did NOT "feel like" doing that! But, I did it anyway assuring the person there was nothing to be embarrassed or humiliated about.

Even now that I no longer work, there are many things I do each and every day that I don't feel like doing and things that I just plain hate doing even - but I do them anyway because they have to be done. I'm sure you do as well.

You can see then that we regularly and normally do things we don't feel like doing. When we think of those things, we usually simply see it as being responsible. In fact, when we sometimes hear about someone that does choose to go with their feelings and not do the thing that needs doing, we'll say that they're irresponsible.

It's no different with forgiving someone, regardless of what they've done or said. We may not feel like forgiving them, but we do it anyway. We do it because God commands it and we love Him, and when we do, we're simply doing our job and being responsible.

So what would be hypocritical? It would be hypocritical if I'd led other people to believe that I loved cleaning up that mess, or getting up in the morning and never thought about throwing the alarm clock through the window. It would be hypocritical to tell someone that I loved someone and enjoyed being with them, if I didn't. It would be hypocritical to lead someone to believe that I felt like forgiving them (or someone else) when I didn't feel that way. As long as we don't lie about how we feel though, we're not being hypocritical

We can forgive others even when we don't feel like it and we can make a promise when we don't feel like it. We can even keep a promise when we don't feel like it. I don't know how many times I made promises to my children to do things, like to take them swimming or to their baseball game or boy scouts or something like that, after work later in the week. Then, when that day came, I'd take them regardless of how I felt. In fact, I never felt like taking them to their baseball games because I hate baseball lol and I hate bugs and there's always tons of those tiny biting flies we call "no see ems" during that time of year. But I took them twice a week, every week during the season and I stayed and watched them play. It didn't matter how tired I was, or if I was sick or if I'd much rather be doing something....anything else lol, I took them to their game. Like I said, I'm sure you've all done similar things and still do. It's the responsible thing to do.

So never allow yourself to be fooled into thinking that you can't forgive someone because you don't feel like it; or that you haven't really forgiven them because you don't feel like you have. Our feelings about things like this, really don't matter.

Forgiveness and Forgiving 3

Keep in mind what we've learned so far about forgiveness:

1. We are commanded to forgive
2. Forgiveness is a choice, a decision; not a feeling
3. There are conditions attached to forgiveness,

• only those who are saved can be truly forgiven, because it is through the blood of Christ that we are forgiven
• only those who repent of their sin can be forgiven; without repentance, there is no forgiveness

4. We are to forgive other believers the way God forgives us, by "not remembering" their sin anymore. Meaning that we promise not to bring it up again to ourselves, them, or anyone else.
5. when a believer sins against us we are to go to them and rebuke them. The rule is: The one with the sore toes goes because he’s the one who always knows.
6. If they continue to sin against us, but also continue to repent, we are to continue to forgive them.
7. The goal of forgiveness is to restore the relationship between you and the person who sinned against you; as well as restoring each persons relationship with the Lord.

I would like to say something about that last one really quickly here. We are commanded to forgive for a reason. I'm sure you have noticed too that in the NT love and unity between believers is stressed a great deal. 1 John especially talks about this. Because we each are saved and have a personal relationship with the Lord, it's our relationship with Him and our love for Him that unites us as we obey His command to love each other. Today the idea of that "unity" between believers has been twisted to mean things that God never intended it to mean. I'll go over this more later, because our fellowship with each other is of utmost importance to Jesus and should be to us as well.

We will be going over much more about the "rebuking" part later. I'm sure you want to hear about "unbelievers" so I'm going to cover that first and then go back to our responsibilities concerning believers. We will also cover what to do when we are the ones who have sinned against someone else, as well as a number of other common things about forgiveness.

Forgiveness and Forgiving 2

LiveJournal Tags: forgiveness,forgiving,God,Jesus,Bible,Bible study

We need to understand that forgiveness is conditional. In other words there are conditions attached to forgiveness. It's not given without those conditions. Many people think we have to forgive others even if they don't repent and they use what Jesus said on the cross to prove it. (you know, where Jesus said, "Father forgive them, they know not what they do" Luke 23:34) The problem with this is that when Jesus said that, He wasn't forgiving anyone, He was praying! If He had forgiven everyone then everyone would be saved without having to accept Him as God and without having to believe that His death paid for their sins. The Father did in fact answer His prayer too. Think about what was happening right then. The Lord, the God of all creation was hanging on a cross, put there by men He Himself had created, after they had tortured Him! If anything would anger the Father, THAT would! Remember what happened? It sure sounds to me like the Father was angry!

Luke 23:44–45 —It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour, *for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. *
Matthew 27:51 —At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. *
Matthew 27:54 —When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, “Surely he was the Son of God!” *

I honestly believe that the only reason God didn't wipe out mankind right then and there is because of our Lord's prayer! But no one was forgiven of their sin, especially the sin of crucifying the Lord unless or until they had repented. The Father answered that part of our Lord's prayer as well as both the thief and the centurion repented and I'm sure others did as well that we're not aware of Luke 23:42–43, 47; and of course others were saved after the Lord rose again and more still after the Holy Spirit was sent. Each one that was saved though had repented of their sins.

Any way you look at it though, Jesus did not forgive "everyone" or anyone when He prayed that, He was only asking the Father to forgive mankind for what they were doing to Him. Just like Stephen did when he was stoned. Jesus knew that those who had put Him on the cross did so because they were still under the control of sin...of Satan and that they didn't understand what they were doing. He wanted them (and us) to have another chance to be saved.

In the entire Bible, the only time someone is forgiven is when they have repented of their sin. That includes us too. Let's say we have a habit of swearing. We've done it for years and we really don't think it's all that bad because we don't use the really bad words, just a few of the milder ones. But we go to God and ask Him to forgive us because we know it's wrong and a sin. If we don't truly hate that sin and mean to stop, then we are not forgiven of it. We can ask all we want to, but until we truly repent, we're not forgiven. If we have truly repented, we will hate that sin and do our very best not to repeat it. If we do slip and repeat it anyway, it will cause us to feel just awful about it and we'll go to the Lord begging His mercy and help and be forgiven again. However, if we're just asking forgiveness because we know we're supposed to, then we might as well save our breath. Our relationship with the Lord won't be restored and we won't have peace with Him until we truly hate that sin. Look at that portion of the passage we're studying again:

Luke 17:3–4 —So watch yourselves. “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. *If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.” *

It's when the person has repented that we're then able to forgive them. Luke 24:46–47, Acts 17:30 and many many other passages show us that repentance must come before forgiveness.

So let's say a Christian lies to you and you go to them and tell them that you know that they lied. Let's pretend they act really sorry about it and say they repent and ask you to forgive them. Keep in mind, if you say you will forgive them, then you're promising that you won't bring up this matter ever again to them, to yourself or to anyone else. Because the Lord says to forgive them though, you do so. You both feel better and you go back home. Well a few days later, you're talking to them on the phone when they again say something that you again know is a lie! So you again confront them right away and again they repent or seem to, and you again forgive them. Let's say this keeps happening, over and over again and you're really beginning to wonder if this person even knows what repentance is! You're getting really annoyed with them and having trouble not sinning yourself because of anger toward them. This is the kind of situation the apostles were talking about when they asked Jesus just how many times they were supposed to forgive someone for something.

Luke 17:4–5 —If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.” *The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” *

See how they responded to the Lord when He said that? If put in modern terms, you could say they said, "Whew! That's asking a lot! No way i can do that without more faith!" What did Jesus think of their reply though? Did He tell them that was good and that more faith would be supplied if they needed it? No!
Luke 17:6 —He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you. *

And after saying that, He then went straight into the story about the servant and how the servant should obey and not expect to be rewarded for just doing what he'd been ordered to! So with those words, Jesus took care of all our excuses for not forgiving someone who has repented, or who at least says they've repented!

He first tells us that no matter how little our faith is, we have enough to obey Him and forgive because forgiveness is a choice not a feeling. Only God knows for sure what's in someone's heart. He does tell us in other places that we can know people by their fruit, but fruit takes time to grow. It doesn't grow over night or even in a day or a week. So just because someone keeps repeating a sin, if they say they've repented and ask our forgiveness, we have to forgive them. We have no choice, because those are our orders. We're to leave the judging to Him and forgive them.

Then He tells us the story about the servant and that one takes care of our excuse of not feeling like forgiving them! Read that one now:

Luke 17:7–10 —“Suppose one of you had a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Would he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? *Would he not rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? *Would he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? *So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’ ” *

Now, think of this servant. He's been working hard all day long and like anyone would, by supper time, he's hungry. But it's his job to prepare supper and serve his Master, not to eat it himself. So he cleans up, fixes supper and by then he's starving! He takes the meal out to his master, practically drooling over it himself, and has to stand their ready in case his master wants something, while his master eats it! When his master is finally done, he still doesn't get to eat... now he has to bring out the desert! When his master has finished that, he has to clear the table. Then and only then, can he finally reheat everything and get some supper for himself.

What is that servant feeling do you think? I'm quite sure he's feeling hungry and wanting to eat that food and wishing he could. His "feelings" are telling him to eat it and to eat it right now! Then why doesn't he? He doesn't eat it because he knows that he has to obey His master. There's no way he's going to think something like, "If I feel like it I'll obey my master, but if I don't feel like it, I'll just do what i want, which in this case means I'll go ahead and eat!" Jesus tells us that when the servant obeys in spite of how he "feels", he's not even doing anything special. He's just doing what he's supposed to do!

So now we know that we have to forgive when another Christian says they repent, regardless of how we feel, regardless of whether or not we see the "fruit" of repentance in their lives, and regardless of how much "faith" we have, because how ever much we have is enough.

Often we tend to think we're being hypocritical if we forgive someone that we don't feel like forgiving, so we really need to remember and understand that forgiveness is not a feeling. I want to quote from one of my books again because the way they explain this is really good and easy to remember.

“But, wait a minute! God doesn’t want me to be a hypocrite, does He? ”
No.
“Then, if I forgive someone when I don’t feel like doing so, won’t I be a hypocrite?”
No. Let me tell you why. The only reason you raise such an objection is because you have been influenced by the feeling-oriented times in which we live. You see, to think that way one must adopt an unbiblical, feeling-oriented view of hypocrisy. Your argument is that if you don’t feel forgiving, granting another forgiveness will be insincere and thus hypocritical. But actually, you have bought into a very foolish viewpoint. Let me explain.

Every morning I do something against all my feelings: I get up. Hardly ever do I want to get up. I’d like to throw the alarm clock through the window, cover my head with the covers, and forget the whole unpleasant business. But I don’t. I get up. Now, does that make me a hypocrite? Of course not. And, that isn’t the only thing I have to do against my feelings. All day long, in order to be responsible to God and others, I must do many things against my feelings. What does it mean when I pursue my responsibilities against my feelings? It simply means I am being responsible.

The biblical view of hypocrisy makes sense. If I had told you or led you to believe that I love to get out of bed in the morning when the truth is I don’t, then I would have been acting hypocritically. But I’ve told you the truth.

Adams, J. E. (1989). From forgiven to forgiving

One other thing I want to address is the idea that we're to "forgive and forget". We already talked about God "not remembering" our sins meaning that He promises not to bring them up to us, Himself or anyone else again, which we are also to do when we forgive. Forgiving and forgetting is another one of those sayings that have been repeated so often that people think it's biblical when it's not found in the bible anywhere! God never tells us to forget something. For one thing, He'd never command us to do something we're incapable of. (yes, I know He tells us to "be perfect" but the word that's translated "perfect" in that passage simply means to be "spiritually mature", so He is telling us there to grow in our faith which we are perfectly capable of doing) For another, He tells us to be aware and alert of dangers and temptations, and if we literally forgot things, we couldn't be aware of many of them. You can't learn a lesson and forget how you learned it. What He does tell us to do is "not remember" the sin in the same way He doesn't.

We're to make the same promise He does: not to think about it, not to remind ourselves of the sin, or remind the person or anyone else about it ever again. That means, taking our thoughts captive when necessary and using a Phil 4:8 list to direct our thoughts elsewhere if needed.

Philippians 4:8 —Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. *

(A Phil 4:8 list is a list we can make of things that we can think about that will agree with this verse. This list will be a list of things to think about whenever your mind starts wandering into areas it shouldn't. After writing down the verse, you list 20 different things to think about. These are NOT to be little, light things or things that you can only think about for a few seconds, but things that will keep your mind occupied for awhile. Write down things like, "What do I have to do to get ready to go on vacation"; "ideas of ways to talk about God to my children/grandchildren" or "how I want to redecorate or rearrange my living room"; or maybe, "people I might be able to help and include how" Or "what I'm going to do in my garden". I don't know what things you will want on your list, but they should all be things that agree with the above verse and that will keep your mind occupied for some time. Ask the Lord to help you think of things to put on it.

So the first step is to take your thoughts captive which we've discussed at length in other studies. If after taking your thoughts captive and replacing them with God's Truth, your mind keeps wanting to bring up the forbidden subject, that's when you use your phil 4:8 list to distract it.)

What's really great about this is that as we obey God and take our thoughts captive about these things (or anything else for that matter) we DO eventually forget it! Not literally of course. If we were to dig around in our memories, we'd find it, but for all practical purposes, eventually the memory of that sin will fade away as it's covered up with the other things we think about instead. You know that if you want to get rid of a bad habit, you can't just stop doing something or thinking something or saying something. You have to replace it with something else. Once you replace it and the replacement becomes a habit, then you've "forgotten" the bad habit. The same is true with this. Eventually the memory fades away as it's been replaced. So truly the only way we can forget something someone has done to us is by forgiving them God's way!

Now, about "apologizing". Apologizing is the worlds substitute for forgiveness. Originally the word meant defending yourself against a charge of wrongdoing in court (in Greece). Obviously that's the exact opposite of confessing your sins. Somehow or another though the word began to be used for when people said they were 'sorry" they'd done something. Saying your "sorry" and actually repenting of sin are two very different things. Someone can simply be "sorry" they got caught, or sorry they're going to have to pay the consequences of their sin, in fact they may not even believe in God or sin. If they do, they can even just be "sorry" that they're going to be in trouble for not doing what they knew they were supposed to do. They don't hate the sin, they're just sorry about it. All they're doing when they say they're sorry is telling you how they feel. They're not even telling you why they feel that way, which as I just showed could be for many different reasons! They aren't promising anything or doing anything about the sin when they say they're sorry either - as with repentance which means that they hate the sin and won't do it again and then they ask forgiveness and a promise is given that the sin won't be brought up again. Again this will help you understand it much better:

Picture the wrongdoer holding a basketball. He apologizes, saying, “I’m sorry.” The one offended shuffles his feet awkwardly. It is always awkward to respond to an apology, because you are not asked to do anything, and yet some sort of response is expected. The offended party says something inane like, “Well, that’s OK.” But it isn’t. The matter has not been put to rest. When you say the wrongdoing is OK you either lie or condone a wrong. At the end of the transaction the wrongdoer is still holding the ball.
Now, consider forgiveness. The wrongdoer comes with his basketball. He says, “I wronged you. Will you forgive me?” In so doing, he tosses the ball to the other person.
He is freed of his burden. Now, the burden for a response has shifted. The one wronged is asked to do what God requires him to do. He must either make the promise or risk offending God. There may be indecision on his part, but there is no awkwardness occasioned by unclarity. He knows what the Bible expects of him. When he says, “I forgive you,” he promises not to bring the matter up again. The two have both made commitments. The wrongdoer confessed to wrongdoing; he committed himself to that confession. The offended party committed himself to burying the matter. At the end of the transaction, the ball is tossed away and obligations concerning the matter are over and done with. Both are free to become reconciled. The matter has been set to rest.

Adams, J. E. (1989). From forgiven to forgiving

I think now you can see that apologizing is just the worlds substitute for forgiveness and it doesn't work very well. That does not mean that you can never say you're sorry to someone though. The world expects it and there's no real reason you can't give it to them, as long as YOU understand what's really happening. It's sad, but true that this is the best the world has to offer for unbelievers.