Should We Forgive the Dead?

I received a shocking call a few weeks ago that a friend of mine was discovered dead at home on his couch.  Though I was grief stricken, I was glad when the family invited me to speak at a private graveside service.

I shared some wonderful attributes about my friend that his family didn't know.   He prayed 2-3 hours almost every day.  He prayed to enjoy God most of all.  But he also prayed for ministries, his family, for my family and many others.  He thought that was what every Christian did until I told him God had actually given him a ministry of intercession.  He was pleasantly surprised. 

He also lived a life of generosity though he lived on disability checks and had little.  He gave to help people and some ministries.  One day, he and I had lunch, as we did from time to time.  When he arrived at my office, he told me he had a gift for me and couldn't wait for me to open it. So, I fished a box out of his gift bag which contained a beautiful calf skin Bible with my name engraved in gold.  I could hardly believe it because I knew how meagerly he lived.  From his joyful expression, I could tell it gave him great joy, so I didn't dare tell him he shouldn't have bought it because he didn't have the money.

At the end of my eulogy, I did something I've never done before at a funeral.  I shared with them earlier how I had helped my friend forgive his own father who had cruelly rejected him as a child.    I acknowledged that at times, my friend could be hard to live with but I didn't leave it there. (He had flesh like all of us.) I gently challenged each of them to forgive my friend.  They heard how they could tell God the things their nephew did which offended them and how it made them feel.  They could also acknowledge to God that their nephew didn't deserve their forgiveness, just as they didn't deserve God's forgiveness.  They could then go on and tell God they forgave their nephew, even though they might not feel like it.

I realized they might think it strange to forgive someone who was already dead and in heaven.  Their act of forgiveness would accomplish two things.  First, it would be their final act of love for their nephew.  Second, it would remove a burden from each of them they probably didn't even realize was there.

I wonder if you have a person who has died whom you need to forgive for how they hurt and offended you.   You might need to forgive them for dying and leaving you.  If so, you may feel guilty for feeling this way, or think that it doesn't matter because they are already dead.  It's not wrong or too late to forgive the dead.  Forgiving them will free you from a burden you've needed to get rid of for a while.  Are you willing to be intentional in doing this?  If you don't plan it, you may never forgive and experience this awesome peace available to you in Christ.   

Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. (Ephesians 4:32) 

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!

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!

A Call to Respond to the Charleston Church Shooting

My Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, I cannot sit in silence without writing about the atrocity at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church last week, when a shooter killed nine of our other brothers and sisters.  My feelings about this are so strong, that I am compelled by the love of Christ to respond.

I believe the killings were demonically motivated in the mind of the shooter.  (I don’t care to give the shooter more fame by using his name.)   Satan’s mission statement, according to Jesus in John 10:10, is to “kill, steal and destroy.” He succeeded in killing these precious nine members.  That is how this story begins, but hopefully, not how it ends.  And, a lot of that depends on whether we choose to live like who we are in Christ.

Here are some piercing questions that challenged me that I had to ask myself in how God can use this tragedy for good. Each of these questions is really about a bigger question?  “Is Christ living through me in regard to racism?”

•       Do I feel our Father’s grief over this or have I resigned myself to the inevitability of these kinds of killings?
•       Have I recognized my own sin of racism as evidenced by telling racial jokes or passing on my racist views to my children and others?
•       Have I prayed for the family members of the nine slain brothers and sisters in Christ?
•       Have I prayed for the remaining members of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church?
•       Have I asked God if there is a lonely person in my life He wants me to befriend and share Christ with, who just might be the next shooter unless someone reaches out to him?
•       Have I prayed that the church as a whole would stop being the most segregated institution in America?
•       If I preach each Sunday, have I considered preaching on this?
•       If I blog, have I considered writing on this?

My prayer more than ever is that we let Jesus live through us to be a part of the answer, instead of perpetuating the problem.  Something to look forward to is that God’s kingdom in heaven is full of every race, tribe, tongue and nation according to Revelation 5:9 and 7:9.  Heaven will not have different sections based on skin color.  Every neighborhood will be multi-ethnic.

Jesus taught us to pray for the kingdom of God to come to the earth.  That includes racial diversity in the body of Christ, as well as economic and ability/disability diversity.  As His children, we can all be united in prayer that His Kingdom will come to the part of the earth we journey on.

The Jesus who lives in us grieves over what happened last week.  But He also knows it is an opportunity for the church to rise up and act as His agent, through whom He brings His kingdom to this earth.  No one person can do it all but, the One Person living in us can do more when we rely on Him to do it through each of us.

This is the Gospel in action because just as the Gospel of grace frees us from our own junk, He also desires to express Himself through us into a dark world that desperately needs His light to shine brightly.

Would you stop for a moment and ask your Heavenly Father what He might be saying to you in this devo/blog?

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!

Do You Know Your Unique Flesh?

Defining the meaning of words is of the utmost importance when you are attempting to understand their true meaning.  Think about the meaning of these words when they were used just a few years ago.

Far Out - in the 70s it meant something was awesome.

Gnarly – in the 80’s it was a surfer term that came to mean something was cool.

Da Bomb – in the 90’s it means something was really amazing.

GitRDone – in the 2000’s it meant to get something accomplished.

It’s the same in Scripture.  Words often have very specific meaning and it does matter. Though I read lots of different versions of the Bible, my favorites for understanding specific words is the New American Standard Bible (NASB) or The English Standard Version (ESV).

That brings us to the word “flesh”.  As I wrote about in last week’s blog, this is not the old nature, the sinful nature or our identity in Adam.  It’s something very different.  The rawest meaning is simply meat.  In the Scriptures it is used to mean a few other things. One definition is simply our physical body.  For example, In John 3:6, Jesus said, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” (NASB)

The main meaning for the word “flesh” used in the New Covenant is what we are interested in today.  Let’s first see what the Bible says.  Then we will make it very practical.

1. The flesh has desires that are the opposite of those of the Holy Spirit.  Galatians 5:17  For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. (NASB)

2. The flesh expresses itself in specific ways.  Galatians 5:19-21a Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. (NASB)

Here is the practical part.  This is what we help people discover in their personal lives when they come to us for counseling.

1. Fleshly living is acting the opposite of living like who you are in Christ.

2. Fleshly living is strategies of living dependent on you instead of Jesus in you.

3. Flesh is unique for everyone since it is often programmed from relationships and events which you experienced growing up.

Here is a visual for you.  If you drive a car through the mud, even after the car is long gone, the tracks can be imprinted in the mud long afterwards.  The old nature like that car is long gone.  It was crucified with Christ according to Romans 6:6 and Galatians 2:20.  However, there are left over “tracks”, meaning fleshly sins (independent living) you may still struggle with after you are saved, that you were controlled by before you were saved.  You can also develop new fleshly sins after you are saved.

When we provide discipleship counseling, we ask the Holy Spirit through us to show a person that they have beliefs, feelings and behaviors that they are using to try to make life work apart from Christ.  They come to see this as their unique flesh patterns.  We diagram it for them so that they see why life is not working for them.  Then, we show them as a result of the Cross, that’s no longer representative of who they are in Christ, in fact, it’s the opposite.  Next, we take ample time helping them with the day by day journey of learning relying on Jesus in them to “cope with life.” Then, the Holy Spirit begins to replace the former fleshly patterns of coping with the fruit of the Spirit, providing new ways of living.

Do you know the specific patterns of your unique flesh which are defeating you over and over?  If not, I invite you to attend one of our Grace Life Conferences or get counseling from us.  You can take advantage of these opportunities to experience a better way of life, either in person or by Skype.   Contact us at info@gracelifeinternational.com or call us at 704-522-9026.  Also, a listing of the monthly Conferences are available on our website at www.gracelifeinternational.com   We have three locations as well.

If you missed last week’s blog and are interested in reading it and others, go to www. markmaulding.com.

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!

Do Christ Followers Have a Sinful Nature?

The short answer is “No” but it’s greatly misunderstood.  How about you personally, how would you answer that question before reading the remainder of this blog?

If you consider some of the sins you commit, you may conclude that you do.  In that case, you would be using your behavior to determine your conclusion. God uses birth, not behavior, to define who you are.

When you hear, “I’m just a sinner saved by grace”, you have often heard it so often that you probably nod your head in agreement without giving it much thought.  However, you cannot find any New Covenant scriptures which proclaim that you are a sinner as a Christ follower.  You may say, what about where Paul writes in 1 Timothy 1:15?  This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.  If you start reading in verse 9 and then to 17, you will see the larger story he is using to make this statement.  He is saying that because he persecuted the church before he met Jesus on the Damascus Road, he is the worst sinner ever and if God can save a sinner like him, He can save anyone.

When I played basketball in high school, I set a record for the most rebounds ever in the history of the school.  A rebound is when you grab the basketball after it hits the backboard or rim and doesn’t go in the basket.  To my knowledge, I still hold that record a few decades later.  Though I have graduated from high school and no longer attend there, would it be a fair statement to say that I am the “chief rebounder” at my high school?  Yes it would be though I am no longer a part of that school. It is simply a part of my past, just as Paul being the chief of sinners was a part of his past, though he says it in present tense.

Another issue is that you may have been told most of your life that you have two natures as a Christian.  The old nature and the new nature.  However, Romans 6:6 is very clear that your old nature died once and for all on the cross with Jesus.  It’s no longer in you.  You only have a new nature – your identity in Christ.

One more challenge you may find is that you grew up reading the New International Version Bible.  I like it too, except where they translated the word flesh as sinful nature.  That is very confusing because the old nature is dead and removed.  However, God did not remove the flesh from the Christ follower.   In addition, the old nature and the flesh are not the same.   So when you see in places like Romans 8 that we are dealing with a sinful nature, it’s easy to make the assumption that you have one.  To the NIV’s credit, the newest version changed 95% of those back to flesh, which is more accurate.

Rejoice today!  Though you and I certainly act in a sinful way, you do not have a sinful nature!  You have the new nature where Jesus has made His home in you!  And you have the flesh which is not the old nature or the sinful nature.  Galatian 2:20 says it died and no longer lives, my paraphrase.

“Why is this so important?”  you may be asking?  Because it goes to the very heart of the Gospel about what really happened when Jesus died on the cross for us and when we died with him.  It goes to the core of who you really are deep within.  Are you both a sinner and a saint?  Or, are you a saint who sometimes sins?  According to Romans 6, you are a saint who sometimes sins.  When we teach this truth to people here at GLI and they have embraced it, we’ve watched God change them.  Why?  The truth always sets you free!  Will you believe the truth today so you can live freer in your own life?

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!

You Can’t Meet Your Own Needs for Love, Acceptance, Worth and Security

God created you with certain needs of the heart which only He can fully meet.  I, and my staff have seen that these needs are universal, whether here in the USA, or in places like Zimbabwe, Chile, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Croatia, Ukraine or England. 

Every person needs love because God is love.  Every person needs acceptance because that is what unconditional love from God truly is.  Every person needs worth because we are valuable enough for God to create us and for Jesus to die for us.  Everyone needs security because we need to know we can’t mess up the love we have and only God’s grace in Christ can provide that.  We use the acronym LAWS to help people remember their needs.

I want you to imagine four plastic buckets sitting in front of you.  Each one has a different name on it.  The first says LOVE.  The second says ACCEPTANCE.  The third says WORTH.  The fourth says SECURITY.  God made you to live with those buckets full.  In fact, you can’t live very well unless they are full.  Yet, because we don’t know they are already full, we work hard at trying to fill them ourselves. 

What are some of the ways we do this?  We may perform so people will like us.  We may manipulate people.  We may expect people to meet these needs such as in marriage and when they don’t, we get angry and start an argument.  We may look on Facebook to see what people are saying about us.  We may try to get our kids to meet these needs by making us proud for the wrong reasons.  We may try sex outside of marriage.  We may fantasize through porn.  In other words, we try to control our personal universe by living independently of God, by looking to others or things in trying  to meet these needs.

God says it this way in Jeremiah 2:13.  For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, The fountain of living waters, To hew for themselves cisterns, Broken cisterns That can hold no water. (NASB)

God was speaking of Israel at the time, but it’s still an applicable illustration of what our flesh wants to try to do for us.  First, we turn away from our real Source who will abundantly satisfy our heart like living waters.  Second, we work hard to get our buckets filled but our buckets have holes in them just like Israel’s cisterns did.  (A cistern was a hole you dug into the ground and hoped rain water would fill so you could have water to satisfy your thirst.  But Israel’s had cracks in them so that the water didn’t stay very long.)

You can’t satisfy your own needs for God given LAWS, no matter how hard you work or who you try to get to meet them.  The little that you do strive for will not last and you will have to go out and work hard the next day to get it again.

If you are a Christ follower, you are united to the God who is love and He created you so He could love you.  Do you believe that?  We all get tested in this area when someone disappoints us or we disappoint ourselves.

Why don’t you thank God this week that He is the only one who can adequately meet those needs and ask Him to make them real in you?

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!

Do I Have a Civil War Inside of Me?

Do you ever feel like there are two equal powers inside you with completely opposite desires?  This is a very common feeling, which seems to explain how we struggle to live a life which pleases God.

For example, when a sexually lustful thought enters your mind, it’s not that you know you shouldn’t do that, it’s also in your new heart that you don’t desire to do it. (Ezekiel 36:27)  Yet, there seems to be a sinister opposite desire to do it, though you know you will regret it.

Another example would be when a thought of not measuring up enters your mind.  Though you know God loves you and you want to stand on that reality, there is this other thought which urges you to agree that you don’t measure up and to either give up, or try harder.

What or who is this other player inside of us?  Is it the old nature, a.k.a. your old identity in Adam, or is it something else?

Romans 6:6 tells us, Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin.

The Greek language here, is much clearer than what we read in English.  The verb, was crucified, means that our old self (nature) was crucified once and will never rise from the grave to haunt us ever again.  It was left in that tomb where Jesus was buried.

Here’s our problem.  When we read Scripture, we see that something called the flesh is what we battle with.  And, if you are like me, I was never taught that the flesh and the old nature were different, but they are.  The old nature is gone but the flesh is not.  To muddy the waters ever more, the New International Version Bible translated the flesh as sinful nature, which sounds a lot like old nature, doesn’t it.  (They did correct most of that in their most recent edition.)

The old nature (old self or old man that remained in the grave) was the deepest core of who and what we were in Adam.  This is what made us sinfully rotten to the core. (Jeremiah 17:9)  It died and was replaced with the new nature a.k.a. our identity in Christ. (Ephesians 2:6,   2 Cor. 5:17)

The flesh is strategies we have developed from living, as if we are separated from God, though we are united with Him.  We had some of these before we were saved but we may have developed new strategies since then.

I remember a good pastor friend of my saying, “So what?  This is just semantics.  It doesn’t really matter.”  Actually it matters a lot.  Here is why.

Because we only have one nature, our identity in Christ, our new normal is a heart that desires to live a loving, holy and righteous life.  It’s not to sin, contrary to popular opinion. This means it’s normal for you to live a pure life, rather than a sexually lustful life.  It’s normal for you to live with a Biblical self-esteem, rather than a fleshly one of trying to measure up. None of us will ever do this perfectly, but it is still the deepest desire of our new heart, that is our true identity – our identity in Christ.

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!