|
SET OUR HEARTS ON FIRE Chapter 11
Revival Restores Broken Relationships
Whenever the Spirit moves with power, he requires absolute obedience in the area of forgiveness. He brings to our minds broken relationships we have tried to forget and reminds us that the time has come to act. When we reconcile, the revival spreads. When we refuse to reconcile, the revival, at least in us, is quenched. In our Lord's parable of the unforgiving servant, he allows no loophole for people who have tasted the mercy of God and refuse to show mercy to others.
Then his lord summoned him and said to him, "You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you besought me; and should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?" And in anger his lord delivered him to the jailers, till he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. Matthew 18:32-35
Revival has come to us as a gift from God. But there is a condition: our relationship with our fellow Christian has to be right. If there is resentment in my heart toward my sister, my brother, my neighbor, the line between my heart and heaven is blocked. Or if I am aware that my brother has something against me, and I have done nothing to make it right, my line to heaven is blocked. To clear the vertical line to heaven I first have to clear the horizontal line that connects me to my neighbor.
I can still remember when Nellie started coming to our newly built Church of Our Saviour in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Nellie and her husband, Bob, her two teenage daughters and her mother would fill a pew faithfully every Sunday. When we began to have Bible studies, Nellie was there, sitting by herself for a half hour of silence, with her head cocked to one side as if she were saying, "Here I am, Lord, tell me something."
One night he told her something. "Get things right with your cousin Peg." Her head wasn't cocked to one side anymore. It was bent down. Nellie wasn't too happy with this inspiration, because she and Peg had not spoken to each other for thirty years. How do you "get things right" when you haven't spoken with your cousin, who lives in the same town, for thirty years? As the war of indecision raged within her, Nellie kept her thoughts to herself. But after she obeyed and found joy in her obedience, Nellie let us in on what had happened.
She was riding the bus downtown, when Peg got on the bus and took a seat toward the front on the opposite side of the aisle. Nellie broke out in a sweat. She felt trapped by the Lord. Today's the day. It has to be done.
Peg got off the bus on Portland Street, near the ferry. Nellie got off behind her and followed her into the bakery.
At Bible study Nellie described what happened. "I walked up to her and said, 'Peg?'"
"Peg looked at me in disbelief. I had spoken to her. After thirty years I had spoken to her! She never was as stubborn as I am."
"'Nellie,' she said as her eyes filled, and gave me a hug. And then we talked – for the first time in thirty years! I told my mother when I got home that I ate some 'humble pie' today. She laughed and said, 'It's about time.'"
Revival not only draws us closer to God, it also brings us closer to each other. The Spirit searches our hearts, and wherever he finds a severed relationship he raises it out of the darkness into his light. He gives us the power to love and forbear, to humble ourselves and ask forgiveness. And then he requires us to act, often giving us a nudge through our circumstances. It is no coincidence that a certain person turns up again after all these months. Our paths cross at the airport. Or he's sitting across the table from us at the potluck supper. She appears in a dream. The revival is now touching a region of our lives which we have tried to bury in darkness. And we know that if the revival in our heart is to continue, this relationship must be restored. Jesus' teaching is crystal dear: our love for God is a sham if our relationships aren't right.
When Your Brother or Sister Has Something Against You
I'll never forget a particular Friday evening. I was sitting in a meeting at Detroit's Western Y, which was conducted by some young men from our church. Suddenly I remembered that my brother had something against me. It was our nine-year-old son, who bore me no hard feelings, but saw very little of me in those early days of the revival. I was busy "doing the Lord's work." What am I doing here? I said to myself. I don't belong here. I belong with Marty. I got up and left the meeting.
Jean almost cried when I came in the door. She knew why I had come. Who knows? Maybe she was praying for this. When we know that we have been unkind or unfair to our brother or sister, whether or not that person holds resentment against us, we need to make it right. Many times there is resentment. That person is wounded and angry about something we did or failed to do, while we dismiss the whole issue as pettiness on his or her part.
Give me a break! we say to ourselves and press on with "the Lord's work," treating the matter as closed and forgotten.
But as far as God is concerned, the matter is not closed and forgotten. A relationship has been broken by our hardness of heart, and, as we seek to draw near to God, we begin to feel uncomfortable.
Something's wrong. Then we remember.
It is time to submit to God's judgment in this matter, rather than our own. "Leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift" (Mt 5:24).
This is not something we can mull over and hesitate about for weeks. "Make friends quickly with your accuser," says Jesus (Mt 5:25). We cannot afford to let that relationship fester, because a broken relationship puts us at a distance, not only from our brother, but from God.
When a Christian Wrongs You
"If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone" (Mt 18:15).
As the Spirit of Jesus continues his work of sanctification in us, he teaches us to have tough skin and tender hearts. Wrongs against us begin to roll off us like rainwater. Offenses that once caused us to lose precious hours of sleep begin to melt into forgetfulness as we learn to forbear and as we remember how many similar wrongs against others we have been guilty of. We find it easier now to forgive on the spot and to pray God's fulfilling mercies on the person who slandered us or broke a promise.
But there are wrongs that need to be addressed. We need to go and talk with the person who has wronged us in the same way that we would discuss things with Sears if they sent us a bill for a refrigerator we never bought.
Suppose you're stranded on a lonely road in the middle of winter with a frozen gas line. You're shivering by your car in the late afternoon, when you see what looks like your best friend's car approaching. Help at last! you say to yourself. Your friend passes without so much as a wave. He saw me! I know he saw me. Why didn't he stop?
A few days later you visit your friend at his mother's funeral, but not a word is mentioned about the incident. The following Sunday in church your friend notices that you seem a bit out of sorts and asks if you're okay.
"I'm OK," you say. "Why shouldn't I be OK?"
As the weeks pass your friendship begins to deteriorate. You become more distant toward your friend. Your friend shrugs his shoulders and backs away.
One day six months later you ask, "Why didn't you stop and help me when I was stranded on the road last winter? I know you saw me. Why didn't you stop?"
"Oh, so that's what it is," replies you friend. "I knew something was wrong, but I couldn't figure it out. Why didn't you tell me what it was? Don't you remember? That was the day my mother died. They called me from the hospital, and I left work in a daze. She died fifteen minutes after I got to her room. Yes, I saw you, but it just didn't register. Of course I should have stopped. I was wrong. Please forgive me."
Sometimes the problem between you and the brother who has wronged you is not solved when you talk. He insists that the car you bought from him was in perfect working order when you drove it out of his driveway. If the transmission dropped three days later, those are the breaks. He still smiles and says, "Praise the Lord!" when he shakes hands with you in church. "But a refund is out of the question." He lives in a $300,000 home. You can't even afford the down payment on a trailer.
In Matthew 18, Jesus lays out some specific steps to take when a brother won't listen to you. These steps are given for the purpose of maintaining unity in the body of Christ. For how can there be unity in the body, when there is a wall between brothers or sisters? If a brother or sister refuses to repent and make right a definite wrong, the body of Christ, for its own spiritual health, must deal with this person justly. Significantly, Jesus concludes this discourse with his strongestever teaching about forgiveness. For in the end, the heart of every man or woman of God must be a heart of forgiveness.
When Another Christian Asks Forgiveness
"Take heed to yourselves; if your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him; and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, and says, 'I repent,' you must forgive him" (Lk 17:3-4).
When Jesus insisted on this kind of forgiveness, the apostles cried, "Increase our faith!" There are wrongs that are hard to forgive. Without God's help, who can do it? Yet the life of faith is nothing less than allowing the forgiveness which has been released into this world at Calvary to flow through us. We receive grace that comes to us through the Lamb's blood; and now we live that grace. Mercy flows in; mercy flows out. What better way to describe what revival is all about?
If we're having trouble forgiving a sister or brother, it has less to do with the size of that person's sin against us than the narrowness of our view of Calvary. We are the servants who are forgiven a million-dollar debt, and now we refuse to forgive our fellow servant his or her debt of a hundred?
Our Monday night Bible studies at Messiah Church were rarely as civilized as most church Bible studies. Perhaps for that very reason they attracted men who would not normally find their way into a church. But one Monday night the tension was about to flare into a fist fight. It all began when Frank and Danny got into an argument over whose people had suffered the most: Frank's people, who were black, or Danny's people, who were Native Americans. They pushed back their chairs. Frank was beginning to rise with his fists clenched, when Milton, whose Jewish people had also suffered, closed his Bible, rose from his seat and declared,
"This is not of God!" and headed for the door.
"Yeah, and what you're doing is not of God either," came a voice from the other end of the table. Milton stopped in his tracks, turned, came back to the table and sat down.
"Brothers," he said, "I want to ask your forgiveness for my attitude."
Frank and Danny's anger melted into silence, as Milton's repentance convicted us all.
The body of Christ is a school of forgiveness. God puts us together in this assembly of struggling saints to get some practice in the primary exercise of the Christian life: forgiveness.
Believers are often baffled by the fact that more pain seems to be inflicted on them by people inside the body than by those outside. How can this be? I'm being let down by Christians. And then they expect me to forgive them.
What choice do we have? The minute I open my heart to receive the mercy of God that flows from Christ's cross, I am committed to allowing that mercy to rule my heart toward my brother –especially the brother who has deeply wronged me and now comes asking my forgiveness. The more my heart is occupied with thanksgiving for the Lamb who has carried my sin into the grave, the easier it becomes for me to forgive my brother from my heart.
When Your Neighbor Needs You
The rich man was careful not to let his eyes meet the eyes of Lazarus. To look into that man's eyes would be to create a relationship. Then he would be obliged to help him. The rich man would pass Lazarus as if he weren't there. The world of Lazarus was a foreign country to the rich man, and he chose to avoid it. Today he passes Lazarus in haste; he's on his way to the temple to worship God. He brings a generous offering, which endears him to the priest – but not to God. The rich man has ignored God, belittled God, cursed God by passing Lazarus with his eyes averted.
The needs that surround us are legion. We cannot possibly meet them all. But to insulate ourselves against these needs by averting our eyes is to wrap ourselves in darkness.
Let your eyes meet the eyes of Lazarus. Don't be afraid. Speak to him. He is not your inferior, he is your equal. Holy blood was shed for him as for you. And if there is something you can do, or give, to help him on his journey, do it without letting your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And the highest expression of that freedom is generosity. The believer who is generous has found the road to freedom, and the person in need is the gateway to that road.
In chapter thirteen we will take a closer look at the vital connection between Lazarus --- the person in need – and revival. In this chapter on restored relationships, it is important to understand that one of the relationships to be restored is our kinship with our neighbor in need, whoever he or she may be. Since revival produces love – love, in deed and in truth – my needy neighbor becomes my brother, my sister. The Samaritan understood (as the priest and the Levite failed to understand) that the wounded Jewish man by the roadside was now his brother. By virtue of his need the wall between Jew and Samaritan was removed and he was free to pass over and pour oil and wine into the man's wounds, to lift him on his beast and carry him to an inn. If revival means anything at all, it means that the Spirit of God has come to enable us to follow the Samaritan's example.
When Your Brother or Sister Stumbles in From a Far Country
Now his elder son was in the field; and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants and asked what this meant. And he said to him, "Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has received him safe and sound." But he was angry and refused to go in. LUKE 15:25-28
At 3:00 A.M. the phone rang. It was East Side John, whom I hadn't seen in six months. John had drifted back to drugs. "I've been robbed. I just got home, and they trashed my apartment. My stereo's gone."
So why are you telling me? You made your bed; roll around in it.
"Oh, that's too bad," I said, as if I were sorry for him. "Maybe the Lord is trying to tell me something," says John. "Could be," I answered and rolled over and went back to sleep. I can't remember that I even prayed for this brother who was crying out for some encouragement to come back to the Father's house. I was the elder brother, sulking out in the field, while the Father was preparing a welcome for East Side John.
There was music and dancing in heaven while I slept. Because that night John had come home. It was the beginning of a life of powerful service to the King, which continues to this day. John began scouring Skid Row and loading his aging car with men and women who had slid through a thousand cracks and fallen to the bottom. Soon East Side John was preaching at the Catacombs, an end-of-the-road mission blessed by the angels. But why was I so slow to welcome him, when he came stumbling in from a far country?
Perhaps it's the music and dancing that upsets us. These prodigals who come home, after wasting years of their lives, get a lot more attention than we ever got. God seems to treat them with special favor. And here we are. Lo these many years we have served God, and we never disobeyed his commandments (well, not in the extreme), and he never even gave us a little goat that we might celebrate with our friends. But when this son of his (why should I call him brother?) came, who squandered the Father's living with harlots, he kills the fatted calf for him!
Why do these newcomers to the kingdom have such joy? Why do their prayers seem to be answered so quickly? Why do the Scriptures open for them, when they never studied them as we have? Why does their gospel bear so much fruit? It seems as though they are swept forward by the mighty wind of the Spirit, while we sit here becalmed, waiting.
We're waiting in the wrong place. We're brooding outside the Father's house with an attitude that dampens heaven's joy. And heaven is waiting too – for us. Waiting for us to repent of our self-pity and come in and join the celebration. Welcome your brother! Welcome your sister! "It was fitting to make merry and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost and is found" (Lk 15:32).
When Your "Brother" Is Your Spouse
"likewise you husbands, live considerately with your wives, bestowing honor on the woman as the weaker sex, since you are joint heirs of the grace of life, in order that your prayers may not be hindered" (1 Pt 3:7, emphasis added).
If revival turns the body of Christ into a school of forgiveness, one of its major learning centers is marriage. There are those who are called and gifted to remain celibate for the kingdom of God. They have their special path to walk, as the Spirit strengthens them in the holy art of forbearance. But for those in the married state, our walk with our spouse is vital to our walk with God. Every blessing that comes to us through revival is translated into living in our relationship with our spouse.
While Jesus claims priority over every love in our lives, he always treats marriage as a holy thing. This man and woman are one flesh. God has joined them together. Surely if God has joined them together, he intends for them to walk in love. If we aren't serious about caring for each other and submitting to each other in love, how can we possibly be serious about loving God?
"Behold, I stand at the door and knock, if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me" (Rv 3:20). This promise applies to our marriages as well as to our individual lives. If we hear his voice and open the door, the Lord will come in and eat with us. He will teach us how to walk together in love. He will transform every day of our marriage into a wedding feast, a feast of joy, which will last as long as we live.
The Lord will teach us by his Spirit that this marriage is a thing of royalty. Our mate is to be treated, in all circumstances, with high honor. Never, even in humor, do we demean our mate.
The most precious gift you will ever receive, man, second only to the gift of Jesus himself, is this woman, your wile. She is your queen. Think of her as your queen. Honor her as your queen.
The most precious gift you will ever receive, woman, second only to the gift of Jesus himself, is this man, your husband. He is your king. Honor him as your king.
Jesus teaches us by his Spirit that this marriage is a school of forgiveness. Here the mercy of Calvary is translated into flesh and blood, day-in-and-day-out living. Occasions arise that wound us, disappoint us, shock us, baffle us. How can this woman with whom I share my life be so inconsiderate? How can this man be so insensitive to my needs?
Minor disruptions become the last straw. She fried the eggs too hard. Adam's face is a mile long. "Adam, are you all right?" says Eve.
"Yeah, I'm all right." "Is there something wrong?" "No! blast it, nothing's wrong!"
Adam forgets to throw his socks in the clothes hamper five days in a row. Eve comes in from the bedroom with her jaw clenched. What kind of slob did I marry?
"What's wrong, Eve?" says Adam.
"Nothing," says Eve, as she sits down and pretends to be reading the paper. But now the Spirit of the Lord encourages Adam and Eve to communicate. To forgive.
Eve can't change the way Adam snores. Adam can't change the way Eve blows her nose. These things they accept in each other with generous forbearance. In big issues and trivial matters they discover that, as they forgive each other and ask for forgiveness, their love grows deeper, richer.
Jesus teaches us that this marriage is a place of healing. His presence in our lives flows with healing power between us. Adam comes home from an impossible day at work. He is discouraged, angry, afraid for his job. Eve puts her arms around him, draws him to herself. They kiss, and ten tons roll off Adam's back. I have you, my love. What more do I need? There are times when Eve is the wounded one. Her day was a disaster. She feels overwhelmed. Adam makes her a cup of coffee, sits down and listens, shows his appreciation for the wonderful wife God gave him. The dark clouds vanish. Eve is restored.
Jesus teaches us that this marriage is more than an end in itself, it is a corporate ministry God gave us to each other, so that we could serve him together with joy. Occasionally we meet a couple who have been married for many years and are utterly devoted to each other – to the exclusion of the rest of the world. They live for each other and for no one else. Such love is not love, but selfishness in the extreme. Lazarus lies at their wrought-iron gate and never receives a crumb. One day the illusion will end.
When Jesus enters our marriage, he transforms it into a corporate ministry God gave us to each other so that we can serve him side by side ... raising the children he has given us ... washing feet in the body of Christ where he has placed us ... welcoming the wounded ones he sends to us. As we serve God together, our love grows richer, deeper. And our prayers rise unhindered.
Enemies
"But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven" (Mt 5:44-45). How do I deal with the person who despises me because of my color? Or the colleague at work who is after my job and will use any means to discredit me? The person who seems driven by a desire to throw trouble into my path?
The Lord warned us that we would have enemies. There will be people who hate us and seek to do us harm. The enemy poses a danger, not only to our safety or our reputation, but to our spirit. Through our enemy, the Prince of Darkness seeks to lure us into the web of vengeance. He tempts us to look upon our enemy in hatred. And as our heart hardens toward "this deceitful man," "this underhanded woman," it begins to lose its capacity for mercy. A veil drops down between the soul and God.
The only protection against this destructive process is to do exactly what the Master commands –commands: love him by faith; pray for him. "Pour out your merry upon this man, O God, flood his life with your richest blessing. Touch his inmost soul with healing grace."
"I've quit praying for my enemies," said my friend Matthew,
"because every time I pray for them, God blesses them. No prayer that I ever pray gets answered more quickly than my prayers for my enemies. It's not fair!" Everybody at the Bible study laughed with a laughter that acknowledged how close to home Matthew's confession had hit. We knew that the next time Matthew's enemies would strike at him, he would pray for them in spite of himself. But we wondered about our own hearts. Were we even trying, as Matthew was, to pray for our enemies?
Why is it that our enemies seem to prosper in so many ways, even when we don't pray for them? Where's the justice? Scripture tells us that the day is coming when every wrong that was ever done will be paid for, either by the one who did the wrong or by the Lamb's blood. Every wrong will be righted. Every injustice will be fully addressed.
Meanwhile, as men and women who, by the Spirit of God, are already living in the dimension of the coming glory, we need to be careful about our response to the unjust acts of our enemies. We need to make sure that we are not usurping the role of judge, which belongs only to God. Our job is to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us, and leave ultimate justice to the God who sees the whole picture and who makes no mistakes.
Our line to heaven was opened when Jesus died and the veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom. Through that torn veil the Spirit of God has come to us and revived us with the life of heaven. But that line to heaven closes whenever our horizontal lines are blocked. Our relationship with God is tied to our relationships with each other. The Spirit has put within us all the power we need to show mercy to each other, as God has shown mercy to us – to heal broken relationships. All we have to do is step out in faith and obey the ancient Law of Liberty: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself" (Lk 10:27; Dt 6:5).
From "Set Our Hearts On Fire" published by Servant Publications 1998
|
|
|