Freedom: Charleston Victims' Relatives Forgive Shooter

Last week, I wrote challenging myself and the rest of us with opportunities to live the New Covenant in the area of racial reconciliation.   This week, I want to let two of the relatives of the victims who were slain, challenge all of us to forgive those who hurt us.  These two of the nine, allowed Jesus to live through them to forgive the shooter face-to-face, though he did not ask for it, nor deserve it. 

Nadine Collier, daughter of victim Ethel Lance

"I forgive you. You took something very precious away from me. I will never get to talk to her ever again. I will never be able to hold her again, but I forgive you, and have mercy on your soul. ... You hurt me. You hurt a lot of people. If God forgives you, I forgive you."

Relative of Myra Thompson

"I would just like him to know that, to say the same thing that was just said: I forgive him and my family forgives him. But we would like him to take this opportunity to repent. Repent. Confess. Give your life to the One who matters most: Christ. So that He can change you and change your ways, so no matter what happens to you, you'll be okay."

These are taken from an online article written by Elahe Izadi in the June 19th edition of the Washington Post online.

In a similar article in USA Today, Susan Miller writes "No words are as compelling as those from the people of Charleston, who refuse to let their city be defined by this massacre.  Forgiveness, faith, and mercy: Virtues of those who live and breathe what they learn at a weekly Wednesday night Bible study at the AME church.

This is what it takes for good to overcome evil."

From People of Charleston, Lessons for All,  Susan Miller, USA Today, Tuesday, June 30, 2015, News 2A

You've just read about Jesus living through our sisters in Christ.  Yet, they don't try to hide their immense feelings of grief, loss and pain nor their desire for the legal justice needed.

Do you think they felt like forgiving?  Absolutely not! But they chose to anyway, accessing the grace they already had in Christ to make this choice. In Christ, we are forgivers and we are told to live like who we are in Ephesians 4:31-32.

It is the beginning of our own healing when we do.

"Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior. Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you."

As we approach our celebration of the 239th year of the USA's freedom, why not go deeper in your own personal freedom by asking God if there are people He wants you to forgive.  Then sit down before Him, alone preferably, and tell Him out loud:

1. Exactly what they did to you.
2. How you feel about it.
3. Then say, "I forgive _________." (call their name) 

●  We've discovered at GLI that the more specific you are in all three, the deeper your healing will be.

Do they deserve your forgiveness?  No more than we deserved God's forgiveness. 

Forgiving someone is not saying you are OK with what they did.  It's saying the opposite. "It was wrong but I choose to forgive you anyway." 

Should you go tell them?  Forgive them before God first, and then ask Him if He wants you to talk with them about it.  He will make it clear to you.  And if you do, it's most likely for the purpose of reconciliation which is different than forgiveness.

After you forgive, give God time to heal your damaged emotions.  It may not be instantaneous.  Also, if it comes back up in your mind, remind Satan you already forgave that person.

Forgiving them will free you more than you know from the weight of pain you have been carrying.

Happy Freedom Day!

Believe it! It's the Gospel.

Live Free In Christ,


Mark Maulding, President and Founder

www.GraceLifeInternational.com All Content Copyright © 2015 Mark Maulding but feel free to pass it on!

The Freedom of No Condemnation

Not too long ago, my flesh jumped up and down with its dastardly desires.   When it did, my emotions took a nose dive and before I knew it, they were on the floor getting stomped on.   I wasn't having much fun, to say the least.

That is the way our flesh works.  It jumps up and down inside of us trying to control us and when it does, it makes us feel miserable.   And sometimes, it makes the people around us feel miserable!

 I was crying out to the Lord off and on during this time.  Finally, I said, "Lord, please help me with your life in me."  After a while the Holy Spirit reminded me of Romans 8:1-2 but He did it in reverse order starting with verse 2.  "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death."   I rolled that over and over in my mind and as I did, the peace that passes all understanding began to cut through all the negative feelings.

 Let's think about it together for a minute.  The law of the Spirit is the new law which operates in us in the place of the Old Testament law.  What is that new law?  It is this:  we have the life of Christ Jesus operating inside of us to overcome and free us from another law, the law of sin and death.  The law of sin and death is what we inherited from Adam.  This is not the old nature because it was crucified with Christ.  (Romans 6:6).    It's sometimes called the power of sin which is an unholy force in me but it is not me.  It's like having a splinter in your finger.  The splinter is inflicting pain in me but it is not me.  To make it clear, trying harder is not more powerful than this power of sin.  Only the life of Christ in us is more powerful.

Next, the Holy Spirit reminded me of verse one.  "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."   He was saying to me that He knew how much I was being defeated but there was still no condemnation from Him.  He also reminded me that this verse comes after Romans 7:15-24 where the Apostle Paul shares in detail his own story of devastating defeat sin. 

 What freedom!  No matter how much sin defeats us, there is no condemnation! It took a while for my emotions to come up from the floor.  The reason is that our emotions follow our thoughts much like a train caboose follows the engine.  Your emotions may take some time to line up with the truth of the Gospel as well.

 Have you ever heard of preaching the Gospel to yourself?  That is what my story is really about.  The Holy Spirit wants all of us to preach the Gospel to ourselves often- the complete Gospel.   This is where our freedom is in Christ. 

Believe it!  It's the Gospel!

Live Free In Christ, Mark Maulding, President and Founder www.GraceLifeInternational.com All Content Copyright © 2014 Mark Maulding

Free to Limit Your Freedom

   As we discover our freedom from sin and the law in the Gospel of grace, it is so wonderful that some describe it as being born again, again! I remember those days when the love of God rose up within me in such an overwhelming way. It almost seemed as if I'd never known Christ before, but I knew that wasn't true. I had known Him as my Savior who forgave me and saved me from the penalty of sin. I also knew Him as my Lord, the One to whom I told that I would do anything He wanted me to do. But now I know Him as my Life, the One who lives in me to love me and to live His own life through me. The pressure was finally off of me trying so hard to live the Christian life, and on Jesus. What freedom!

   I had come out of such a legalistic mindset that this new freedom in knowing Christ as my Life was truly awesome. Now I understood what Paul meant when he wrote, "All things are lawful to me." (1 Corinthians 10:23) For example, I had made a vow to God that I would read my Bible at least 5 minutes a day many years prior. It was such a burden. When I understood that I was no longer under the law, God's nor my own self-imposed law, I let go of that vow with great freedom. My conscience which had been held captive to legalism was now being shaped by grace.

   It wasn't long before I realized that I was freer in my conscience than some of my friends. At first, I wanted to try to convince all of my friends that they were freer than they knew. I was puzzled and sometimes I felt angry that they didn't "get it". My zeal outweighed my wisdom.

   As I grew in my freedom in Christ, I began to understand that I was free to limit my freedom. This came not only from my experience but mainly from God's Word. It must be a really big deal to limit our freedom for the sake of loving another Christ follower because Romans 14 and part of 15 are dedicated to this topic as well as 1 Corinthians 8.

   Those who don't have the same understanding of their full freedom in Christ are considered the weaker Christian. Those who do understand their freedom in Christ are called the strong Christian. (As a side note, when I was a legalistic Christian, I considered myself the strong Christian when I compared myself to those who did not live as strictly as me!)

   The responsibility lies with the strong Christian to limit their freedom for the sake of love. The issue in the Corinthian church was about meat sacrificed to idols. The strong Christians would go down to the local idol temple and enjoy grilled steak. The weak Christians thought it sinful to do this. And for them it was. The Holy Spirit instructed the strong to show love by limiting their freedom around these weak Christians.

   You will have to decide before God what your "meat sacrificed to idols" is for you and some of your Christ following friends. At the end of the day, love trumps our freedom. That is why we are free to limit our freedom in Christ.

Live Free In Christ, 

Mark Maulding, President and Founder 

www.GraceLifeInternational.com 

All Content Copyright © 2013 Mark Maulding

Free to Love

   I do not remember my dad telling me he loved me until I was 19 years old. Even then, it was a response to me telling him first. Looking back, I believe he loved me and would have laid down his life for me. As we have both gotten older, he tells me often of his love for me. He was a loving father but it was not expressed clearly for many years.

   Our resurrection with Jesus has made us loving people by replacing our old nature with a new nature. Romans 6:3-4 tells us the old selfish nature has been crucified and buried with Christ being left in the grave. 1 Peter 1:3 describes it this way, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." Do you see it? Jesus resurrection = our new birth (nature).

   This new nature is not an improved old nature. It is a nature which is like God because it is from God. 2 Peter 1:4 proves this where it says "For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust."

   God is love. It is His nature. Because our new nature is like God, it is a loving nature. Every person who is in Christ is a loving person. Loving others does not make us a loving person. We became a loving person the moment we placed our faith in Christ. Just to be clear, our new nature does NOT make us God. "As He is in the world, so are we."

   A lady politely argued with me about this at a recent F4T Conference. Though she knew many Scriptures about our identity in Christ, she still believed the lie, "What I do defines who I am" rather than the truth, "Our identity in Christ will determine what we do." Driving home from the conference one night, the Holy Spirit filled her with such an incredible awareness of the truth that she was overwhelmed to the point of sweet tears running down her face.

   We all need to ask the Holy Spirit to renew our minds with this reality. Because our new nature is like God's nature, we are loving people. That is why when God tells us in His Word to love one another and to love our enemies, He is not telling us to do something that is contrary to who we are. He is telling us to live like Him, the One who loves us and who loves His enemies enough to sacrifice His Son for their salvation. To love like Him is to live like who we already are in Christ. In fact, to love this way is our new normal so we need to ask the Holy Spirit in us to love through us.

   Our resurrection with Christ has freed us from sin as our master (Romans 6:6), freed us from the Law (Romans 7:4) so we are free to live with passion. We have the freedom to love because that is the deepest desire of who and what we are! We have been freed to love God, ourselves and others.

   A young married man recently shared with me that God had been speaking to him about this. He told him that as a son of God, he was already a loving husband and father. He is being so transformed that he says he and his wife have the closest relationship ever in their five year marriage! What is so remarkable about this is eight months ago, he was contemplating leaving his wife. That is the freedom to love!

   Whether you feel it or see it demonstrated in your life, would you stop right now and thank God that you are already a loving person in Christ? Then ask Him to remind you of this. Like the man above, you might be surprised at how this transforms not only you but your relationships.

Live Free In Christ, 

Mark Maulding, President and Founder 

www.GraceLifeInternational.com 

All Content Copyright © 2013 Mark Maulding

Free from Sin's Tyranny

    A man at one of my F4T Conferences told me an all too common story of how hearing a partial Gospel left him powerless to defeat sin. You see, a partial Gospel always produces a partial Christian. Not surprisingly, he became so discouraged with his failures; he gave up on ever being a good Christian and left the church. Interestingly though, he worked in an "end of life" area of a hospital where he took every opportunity to tell these dying people about the salvation offered in Christ. Yet, he remained miserable as sin controlled his body and his soul over and over without mercy. Over time, God gave him understanding that there was more to the Gospel than Jesus died to forgive our sins to get us into heaven. I could tell by the peace I saw on his face that day that he was living free from sin's tyranny.

   This freedom from the sin's tyranny is a great freedom God has provided for us in Christ. I use the word, "tyranny", because before we were in Christ, sin held power over us much like a cruel dictator. We were compelled to obey Him when we liked it and when we didn't.

   Jesus gives us hope by saying, "If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed." John 8:36 NIV Much like my friend above, many of us are surprised at how sin continues to control us, with some of the same old sins, even after we become Christ-followers.

   Has Jesus really freed us from sin's power over us or is that an illusion? Yes! He really has set us free. Here's how. The good news of the complete Gospel is that the part of us which was under sin's tyranny was put to death on the cross with Christ. Romans 6:6 says, "Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him..." The old self was our old nature or old identity in Adam we showed up with on planet earth.

   Romans 6:7 declares, "He who has died is freed from sin". Notice it does not say he "is free from sinning" but is free from sin, meaning free from sin as a power to tyrannize us. Sin referenced here means an unholy power in us but it is not our old nature because that is dead and gone. Sin here is like a generator whose power lines were cut in half when we died with Christ. Being resurrected with Christ as new creations, we have a new power source - union with Christ!

   This is the key to victory when we are tempted to default to that sin we often go to, especially when we are under stress. Do you know what I mean about the particular sin we end up in bed with when we are under a lot of stress? I can almost see you shaking your head "Yes". When we are tempted like this, our old dictator, sin, is offering to benevolent to us so we won't feel so stressed out.

   I have one of those sins which I tend to default to if I'm not vigilant. It's fear. Fear tyrannized my life for many years. And it still can if I allow it. Here's how I am learning to overcome it as my understanding of the complete Gospel grows.

   When tempted to be controlled by fear, I talk to the Lord saying something like this, "Father I know that I am not a fearful person in my identity in Christ. I choose to believe what you say about me rather than what my circumstances are saying. Jesus please handle this by living through me right now!"

   I pray this way based on Romans 8:15 which says, "For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out 'Abba Father". NASB We all came into this world destined to live a life of fear because our old nature was as a slave of sin. The good news is that our new nature - our new identity in Christ yearns to experience the love of Abba Father which replaces more and more of our fears. Though I know this, I admit to you that it is still a mental wrestling match with circumstances screaming that I should be afraid and the Holy Spirit saying gently, "Mark, you are not a fearful person but a peaceful person whose very nature is to trust Me". This greatly helps reminding me that we are not in a power struggle with sin but a truth struggle.

   How about you? What is that sin which keeps beating you like LeBron James would if you played him in a one-one-one basketball game? Jesus HAS already freed us from sin's tyranny by changing who we are deep within but we have to believe it, and then talk to Him about it when we are tempted. You CAN overcome that sin - not by will power, rules or more dedication to God, but by the power of the cross. Be careful! You don't want to make this a formula. Sin is not defeated through a formula, rather by a relationship with God through our union with Christ. Let freedom ring!

Live Free In Christ, 

Mark Maulding, President and Founder 

www.GraceLifeInternational.com All Content Copyright © 2013 Mark Maulding