Matthew 5:43-45 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” Today's episode talks about Jim Blount's four steps to forgiveness and then ends with some great words of prophecy. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Four Steps to Forgiveness
Matthew 5:43-45 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”
Yesterday’s episode took a turn I wasn’t expecting. When I started writing it I was talking about how frustrating it is when our time line and God’s time line don’t add up, or aren’t the same. Then halfway through the Holy Spirit lead me down the path of praying for those who hurt us and helping God save His children. Then I went to prayer group and the teaching was on love your enemies and many of the words of prophesy that were given were also about this topic.
After the meeting was over, we stayed after to go over our bookmark. The bookmark is where we discern all the words of prophecy we received in a month and then come up with the top call, proclamation, promise and directive from God for that month. We are behind in going over the book marks so the bookmark we went over yesterday was from April 2022. Almost a whole year ago and yet it was exactly what we heard in the teaching and what God had said to me in the episode from yesterday. God is so good! When He wants us to hear something, He will make sure we hear it.
So, lets take a look at this passage. “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.” God is telling us to love our enemies. You might hear this and think that you don’t have any enemies. Enemies can be a harsh word and you are sure you don’t have anything like that. However, when you really press in and think about it, I bet you can come up with some. They might be foreign countries whose politics you don’t like or who are hurting their people. It might be people who over the years have hurt you and you are holding a grudge against them, it could be politicians in this country. The point is God is not just talking about enemies, as in just people you are at war with.
Jesus is telling us in this passage to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us. Are we doing this? Are we praying for the person who cut us off in traffic yesterday? Are we praying for the person who is holding up the line at the grocery store? Are we praying for that family member that just drives us crazy? Are we praying for those who used to tease us in grade school or high school? Are we spreading love to those whom we don’t like? Are we loving those that make us mad, sad and angry?
The leader of the prayer group meeting yesterday gave us 4 steps to forgiveness by Father Jim Blount. It would be hard to love someone when you can’t forgive them. Here are the four steps to forgiveness. (Click Here to read article)
1.) Make an act of will: Forgiveness isn’t about your feelings it is a decision. You can make a decision to forgive someone, even if you don’t feel like it. God is going to forgive us as we forgive others. This is something that is good to keep in our minds. To decide to forgive, make an act of the will with this prayer: “I forgive you, (name), in the name of Jesus Christ, now and forever.”
2.) Bless those who persecute you: In this step we return a blessing for a curse. When someone is cursing at us, we don’t return that curse back to them. Words are very powerful. This is the most important step to forgiveness. The anger and the hatred of our wounds leave by the act of blessing. Blessing melts the ice of the heart. Blessing releases the poison. Blessings heals the heart.
3.) Give Thanks always: This is difficult. It is a call to maturity and a call to sanctity. We can thank our persecutors because our persecutors awaken us to the goodness of God. God uses our wounds and pain to teach us humility and dependence on him alone. Through them, I turn to him and he heals me. Though we never ask for persecutions and wounds, they can be a channel for us of the grace of a good and bountiful harvest. St. Therese of Avila said “The only thing we will thank God for when we get to Heaven will be our crosses. St. Rose of Lima said similarly, “Apart from the cross, there is no other ladder by which we may get to Heaven.
4.) Praise the Lord: This is the fourth and final step of forgiveness. We give praise directly to God. We acknowledge Our Lord himself as the source of all our life. God is the all-loving Divine Physician who, for our good and eternal salvation, comes to our aid in the midst of sin and suffering. By praising him, we return all that we are and all that we have suffered to God, the source of all that is good in life. This step completes our forgiveness and leads to perfect acceptance of God’s holy will. To praise God, make an act of will with this prayer: “I praise you Lord and your Blessed Mother and I glorify you for your heavenly plan that is saving me and leading me to perfect joy.”
If you do these four steps to forgiveness, you will be able to love your enemies. These four steps, when done consistently, can transform your heart and your mind. I can tell you from yesterday, God is calling us to love His unloveable. He is calling us to love His lost sheep, to love them back to the kingdom. We can not do this if we are angry and unforgiving. There are some people that we either know personally or we have heard about in the news or in history and we think that they are unforgivable. What they did was awful and there is not way to forgive it. However, God is telling us to forgive them anyway. We don’t have to feel like it, we just have to make a decision to do. Can we do that for God? Can we love his children, even the most evil ones?
I will leave you with the bookmark from my prayer group for April 2022 because it is God’s words instead of mine and He says it so perfectly: “My children, do you hear me call your name? Do you feel my warm breath upon you? I am calling you. I am calling everyone, even the most evil person you can think of. I want all my children to be with me. I am light in the darkness, and as you walk, because you are my light, you bring light into the darkness. In that light is my mercy that you bring to others through your speaking, loving and compassion. I will save all who seek me. Don’t give up on anyone. Pray them to the Kingdom. One little movement of the soul and they can have Heaven with me for eternity. Continue to be open to me and to love me. Continue to spread my Word, my love, and my mercy. I love you more than you can ever imagine. Be faithful to me as I am to you.”
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, loving are enemies is difficult. We want to do if for you and yet we can’t do it without your help. Help us to follow these four steps Lord. Help us to forgive when we don’t feel like it. Help us to forgive even when it's hard. Help us learn to forgive more and more easily. We love you Lord, we understand you want all of your children to be saved. You want them all to go to Heaven. If we can help Lord, we want to. Just show us how to help. We love you Lord and we are so grateful for you. We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus! I look forward to meeting you here again on Monday. Remember Jesus loves you and so do I! Have a blessed weekend!