This is this week’s mended heart challenge:
- If doctrine or teaching is confusing, dig deeper
Become a thinking Christian. Open your Bible and find that verse or that teaching. Who wrote it? Why was it written? Read the verses around it. What is the context of that verse? Ask the Holy Spirit to bring that scripture to life in your heart (John 14:26).
Bible Gateway is an amazing tool with commentaries that explain scripture. Please always feel free to ask your questions here. I love nothing more than digging deeper with you.
- If an individual demands worship or absolute obedience, redefine their role in your faith and in your life
What about honoring your father and mother? What about honoring those in ministry?
Those are good questions. Amy didn’t stop loving her dad. She simply placed him in the role of father, rather than God.
Forgive those who have hurt you to release the burden you’ve been carrying
Forgiveness is releasing the burden of resentment so that you can discover who you are, and where God is leading.
It’s a foundational step in healing, and it’s freeing. We leave anger to find joy. Hatred to find love. Dysfunction to find stability. Judgment to find compassion.
Have you read The Unburdened Heart: Finding the Freedom of Forgiveness?
What happens when you pray continually for God to soften your heart to get to a place of true forgiveness and yet still feel the same? The pain won’t quit! I’m tired of feeling hurt and angry and i pray for God to release those feelings in me but nothing changes.
Hello, you described me just now. For years I nursed bitterness and resentment in my heart towards my mom for a very hurtful childhood and adulthood. I have prayed for years to be free from the burden of unforgiveness. She never apologized, so I guess I always thought that I didn’t have to forgive. The bitterness grew with time. Now I am 51 years old and my mom is 82. She has been in a hospital be going on four weeks with encephalopathy. The only thing I can pray is that she wake up so I can tell her I love her and that I am sorry. Strange huh? Not that she would ask for forgiveness, but that I could tell her I forgive her. God has showed me that when I nurse and unforgiving heart that I have something to apologize for. Nothing, and I mean nothing that has ever happened in my life matters any more except getting to say I’m sorry. None of that ‘stuff’ matters anymore. I am so free from the bitterness towards her that i can be there for her with joy in my heart and love her. God works in mysterious ways. His ways are much higher than our ways. I pray that you will find the freedom in “i’m sorry”. Love in Christ.
Glenda- thank you! And i pray you get that chance!!
Father, Pam is ready to embrace all that you have for her. It may require going through painful growth to find wholeness. Show her areas where you want to abide. Areas where you are asking her to hold up and let go. Areas where you want to take up residence.
What a beautiful, honest question. I pray that you stick with this, no matter how you feel as feelings move to confidence in what God is doing just because He loves you.
Suzie- i have done both the Unburdened Heart study and this one and i have been blessed beyond measure by both. God is working on me; i am having a very hard time getting the message from my head to my heart. i believe i know what God is leading me to do, but the walls i have built around me, well, I’m scared to let them down. every time i do, i get comfortable amd then i get hurt, again.