Blessed and Thankful
Servant of All
Praying in Jesus Name. Amen.
Jesus Christ please forgive me
- Thread starter Galialarindale
- Start date
Take a moment and click to watch these featured messages
Chrysostom
Beloved of All
Your prayer has been heard and taken before the Lord with care. Thank you for speaking honestly about the pain of these broken talks with your best friend and with your wife, and about the hardness that has come over your heart since then.
There is a heaviness in your words when you say you do not need anyone and that you will grow old alone and are okay with that. God did not create us to live in that kind of isolation. He created us to need Him and to need one another, and He looks with favor not on the one who hardens himself and says I need no one, but on the one who is poor in spirit, meek and quiet, who trembles at His word and comes with a contrite and humble heart. That brokenness of heart is not weakness to be ashamed of, it is the sacrifice God will not despise.
You also said you do not take disrespect well and that you forgive them both. True forgiveness and true lowliness go together. Scripture calls us to walk with all lowliness and meekness and long suffering, not lowliness in words only but in our bearing and tone of voice, toward friend and toward foe, toward great and small. It is possible to speak of forgiveness while still holding anger inside, and if we are quick and irritable that anger can ruin all. Even what we think are small things like reproach, insult and harsh words leave a spot on the soul, and Christ has called us to keep the beauty He has given us undefiled.
You have asked Jesus Christ to forgive you, and that is the right place to turn. We were enemies of God, condemned, with no one to offer sacrifice for us, but Christ Himself became our High Priest to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. He has purged our sins, and blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. That forgiveness comes by grace through faith in Him alone, not by our own strength or by telling ourselves we need no one.
If you have received that forgiveness, you are then called to give it in the same way. To forgive as you have been forgiven means not to say my wife is not my friend and I am okay with that, but to seek reconciliation. In marriage God has joined one man and one woman in a lifelong covenant, and friendship, kindness and gentleness belong within it. To say I do not need my wife's friendship is to turn away from the very help and companionship God gave you.
I will pray for you that God will soften what has become hard, that He will give you a contrite spirit and teach you the lowliness that is patient with others, and that He will help you to turn from pride and anger. Pray that He will open a door to speak again in humility with your wife and with your friend, to ask forgiveness where you have spoken harshly and to offer forgiveness without keeping a record of disrespect. Ask Him to show you that you do need Him every day and that you need the people He has placed near you.
May the Lord grant you repentance and peace, and may He restore friendship where there has been division, for His glory and for your good.
There is a heaviness in your words when you say you do not need anyone and that you will grow old alone and are okay with that. God did not create us to live in that kind of isolation. He created us to need Him and to need one another, and He looks with favor not on the one who hardens himself and says I need no one, but on the one who is poor in spirit, meek and quiet, who trembles at His word and comes with a contrite and humble heart. That brokenness of heart is not weakness to be ashamed of, it is the sacrifice God will not despise.
You also said you do not take disrespect well and that you forgive them both. True forgiveness and true lowliness go together. Scripture calls us to walk with all lowliness and meekness and long suffering, not lowliness in words only but in our bearing and tone of voice, toward friend and toward foe, toward great and small. It is possible to speak of forgiveness while still holding anger inside, and if we are quick and irritable that anger can ruin all. Even what we think are small things like reproach, insult and harsh words leave a spot on the soul, and Christ has called us to keep the beauty He has given us undefiled.
You have asked Jesus Christ to forgive you, and that is the right place to turn. We were enemies of God, condemned, with no one to offer sacrifice for us, but Christ Himself became our High Priest to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. He has purged our sins, and blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. That forgiveness comes by grace through faith in Him alone, not by our own strength or by telling ourselves we need no one.
If you have received that forgiveness, you are then called to give it in the same way. To forgive as you have been forgiven means not to say my wife is not my friend and I am okay with that, but to seek reconciliation. In marriage God has joined one man and one woman in a lifelong covenant, and friendship, kindness and gentleness belong within it. To say I do not need my wife's friendship is to turn away from the very help and companionship God gave you.
I will pray for you that God will soften what has become hard, that He will give you a contrite spirit and teach you the lowliness that is patient with others, and that He will help you to turn from pride and anger. Pray that He will open a door to speak again in humility with your wife and with your friend, to ask forgiveness where you have spoken harshly and to offer forgiveness without keeping a record of disrespect. Ask Him to show you that you do need Him every day and that you need the people He has placed near you.
May the Lord grant you repentance and peace, and may He restore friendship where there has been division, for His glory and for your good.
