Forgiveness Instead of Throat Punches
Forgiveness Instead of Throat Punches.
A choice that doesn’t make as much sense if you live in a wonderful and peaceful place, but if you live here in Central Florida, you understand.
Now, I’m not saying that you or I ever plan to throat punch someone. Of course not. But….just in case you weeeeeeeere thinking about it, this is the open book to your open book test on the subject. Don’t do it. Don’t. It’s not worth it.
You know why? Because there’s a better way.
What if I told you that there is a way you can destroy your enemies and NOT get arrested OR tried for war crimes AT ALL?
What if I told you that getting rid of them in this way would lighten your burden, increase your peace and help you to live more of a care-free life full of destiny and other kingdom goodies?
What if I told you that it will increase the power of your prayer life and increase the joy you experience even on your worst days?
“All this, just for destroying my enemies?!?!?!?!?!?”
Yep. It all can be yours.
It’s right here, right now.
Today is your lucky day, fam.
For the low low price of forgiveness and enemy love, it can all be yours.
It’s the way of Jesus.
I was a little spicy on this one. I was feeling judged and was preaching at imaginary preachers and pastors that are judging me in my head. Pray for me. It’s some religious version of imposture syndrome and I’m still learning victorious ways of overcoming this kind of thing.
This is all my attempt to show up in life with no BS or pretense, in the full realness of where I’m at. I don’t have anymore strength to:
Resist the call of God on my life to preach
Present some safe, polished illusion of Christian perfection for you to feast on before your faith in/idolatry of the illusion of Christian perfection is destroyed when I inevitable disappoint you by the abundance of my regular-ass humanity. (The only way is grace, fam. My only righteousness is one Jesus gave me when He died as the sinful broken me.)
This probably isn’t for you if you like turtle necks and the perfect Sunday best… It’s not for you. Move on. Go binge Netflix or something. For the people that “have your ducks in a row”… go play with your ducks. This isn’t your sermon.
No one even told me I was supposed to have ducks.
But, if you know what it’s like to reach for greatness and wrestle with the self-loathing shame and the grinding burn of disappointment a thousand times and then show up a thousand and one times because you believe HIS GRACE IS SUFFICIENT. If you know what it’s like to pray like a drowning man trying to breathe.
If you’re awakened from the delusion of human perfection and any chance that you have of obtaining righteousness by any work of your own, this is for you.
If you are aware of the grit and brokenness of life. If you have grown to know some of the depths of human depravity by experiencing the violence and perverse selfishness of human beings, this is for you.
If you’ve suffered abuse or have been hated for something you can’t control,
If you have been abused in any way,
If you’ve been robbed, cheated, lied to, betrayed, cheated on…………
And you wanted vengeance, or just innocently hated them.
This may or may not be of help to you.
I’m still learning this stuff but I’m doing my best to choose the path of forgiveness and enemy love every day because regardless of what I feel or think about it, this is the way of Jesus.
He loves, forgives, serves us, believes in us, calls us home and fathers us.
He loves us, as we actually are……….and not as:
we think we should be,
as the world thinks you should be,
as the church thinks you should be,
as your mom thinks you should be
or anyone else’s idea of who you are and how you should be,
where you should be,
Or how you should feel about it.
He loves you in the dust of your reality.
He loves you, when you’ve lost all hope, when your heart is broken and you don’t know how to operate as a functional adult.
He loves you when your dreams have been shattered and marred beyond recognition and for a time, you gave up hoping.
He loves you
AS.
YOU.
ARE.
He loved us at our worst, in our darkest hours of depravity, when we forget who He is, forget who we are and are acting out of countless trauma responses.
When we lived under the delusion that He is our enemy and wage war on Him and His children/our siblings…..
He loves.
He blesses.
He calls us forth.
He forgave us already for all that we have done, just did, currently are doing and all that we will ever do.
He paid the price for all that sin once and for all.
All He asks us, is to love as we have been loved.
To give what we have been given.
To forgive as we have been forgiven.
Here’s the sermon.