I’m a MESS – With a purpose!

Do you really want your heart to be healed?  Healing begins with repentance! Repentance means to turn and head in the opposite direction. It involves a change of thought and action to correct a wrong.

Not forgiving others, is wrong. Repentance is your choice. Healing your heart is the miracle work of God. Let’s look at 2 Chronicles 7:14, for proof, “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray….and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” (Emphasis mine.)

In my last blog, we read Matthew 24:10-13, where Jesus warned those who were most at risk, His followers! When offended by others, many [Christians] would fall away from their faith. Jesus said, “only those who endure to the end [in love] will be saved.” (Emphasis mine.)

I have been studying God’s Word on the topic of forgiveness for sometime now.  Even so, I have messed up many times in the last while!  I’ve allowed myself to become offended, reacted from a sense of entitlement, and let my pride and my feelings guide my actions.  I’ve been clinging to bitterness and resentment like it’s my last dollar.  A week or two ago, I declared myself “a hopeless mess.”

As strange as this might sound, reassurance for my own moral state came on one of my recent trips to Superstore.

For any of you who live in Kelowna and shop at Superstore, I’m sure you’ll get this…Over the last eight weeks or more, the supermarket has been undergoing major renovations.  Despite the plethora of signage thanking people for their patience and, in exchange, promising a better future shopping experience, people could be seen wandering from aisle to aisle with a perplexed look on their face while muttering “something” beneath their breaths.  I felt the same way because of the mayhem.

A few weeks back, I walked into Superstore and though they were not finished their rennis, I could see that their “mess had a purpose.” Peace, though only a glimpse of it, poked its little head out from the beneath the chaos. I was flooded with relief. Because I have several young men (translated that means big eaters) in my family, it only makes economical sense for me to continue shopping there.

Press the pause button here for a moment.

I feel a bit silly. I was completely unaware of the timing that this series would take us through, when I humbly agreed to partner with Lesley-Anne on the topic of forgiveness. We are just over our Easter celebrations.   For Christians, Easter is the most sacred time in all the year.  It marks the anniversary of the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross, so that we could be forgiven and reconciled with God.

During Jesus’ day, the Jewish people had been longing and looking for a new king.  Israel was under constant threat from all sides, and in a state of pandemonium, most of the time.  Jesus promised to be the king that would restore peace and bring order to a country in chaos.

Can you imagine the thoughts running through the minds of those who had followed Jesus closely for three years, when they saw Him hanging on that cross, dead?  To those who had put their hope in Jesus, the situation must have appeared to them as “a hopeless mess.”  What good could come from Jesus death?  Of course, we know now that “that mess had a purpose!”  Jesus promised that when He left this earth He would send a helper.

In Luke 13:3, Jesus told His followers, “unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”  Our initial salvation process begins when we choose to repent.  In Revelation 3:19 & 20, Jesus tells us that, “if we repent, He will come in and live with us.”  Repentance is “how” we open the door through which Jesus, by His Holy Spirit, promises He will enter.  What a beautiful thought, “when we decide we want to leave our former ways behind, we make ourselves ready for God to come near.”

Does our repentance mean we will never sin again? The verse from 2 Chronicles would indicate otherwise.  Only those who are saved are, “a people called by His name.”  After all I have learned I wish I could tell you that I am “fixed” but, as I confessed earlier, I am still making mistakes.
Our subsequent “saving” from sin (unforgiveness, etc.) also happens when repent.

I used to think that when I made my initial decision (when I repented) to forgive others, my unforgiveness would be gone.  Poof!  No more ill-feelings towards others.  I have since learned that while repentance is necessary and no healing can come without it, forgiveness is not a one time event – it is a process.

My process began when God revealed to me that there were people in my own life that I thought I had forgiven, when I had not.  I knew I was supposed to forgive, so I had simply tucked things away, hiding hurts deep in my heart.  Every time I would hear a name, or see a face of one I hadn’t forgiven, the Holy Spirit would remind me that we weren’t done yet.  Sound familiar?

The Holy Spirit is the architect and site supervisor of the renovations of the heart.  Did you know that it is the Holy Spirit’s job to bring order out of chaos?  To learn more about the ministry of the Holy Spirit see, Radical Love …Forever Changed.

God sees all “unforgiveness” as a wicked way.  Matthew 18:23-35.  It take humility, especially if you are one of His people, called by His name, to admit you have not been able to forgive.  When we seek the compassionate, loving, merciful face of God and repent, God promises healing to our land – one heart at a time.

I admit I am still a mess – but I’m not hopeless!  God faithfully reconstructs those He loves.   The good news is that I am learning to repent a lot sooner now and trusting that God is working in me, to conform me to the image of His Son.  Romans 8:28 & 29.

When it comes to forgiveness, are you still feeling like a mess?  Every change toward Godliness begins with repentance.  Do you want to be healed?  Repentance is your first step.

If you have truly repented, The Holy Spirit lives in you and you can be confident when you glance at hope – You may be a mess, but you are a “mess with a purpose.”

For those who love Him and seek to follow His ways, Jesus promises that patience will produce a better future.  Trusting that it begins with repentance, and only you can make that initial decision, why not talk to God, turn, and let the healing begin?

Aleichem Shalom

~dl