Resentment Bank
There is much more to God than we can even ever know in this life. For God’s thoughts are above our thoughts and his ways above our ways. The aim of education is not knowledge, but rather wisdom. Wisdom is the application of knowledge. Therefore, be ye doers of the word and not hearers only. Obedience to the Lord is where the rubber meets the road.
In Matthew 5 in the sermon on the mount Jesus said, “The Pharisees have told you to hate your enemies and love your friends. But I’m giving you a new message, Love your enemies. Bless them that persecute you and pray for them who despitefully use you. Jesus practiced what he preached…. in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly. When he was reviled, he reviled not.. Because of the joy of your salvation and mine, he endured the cross, despising the shame and is set down on the right hand of God.
The gift of Salvation, along with God’s forgiveness, grace, and mercy is not because of our own merit. For the wages of sin is death. We were deserving of God’s judgement. However loving kindness and tender mercy is God’s nature, not ours. We were deserving of judgement and death. However, Christ died for the ungodly… Not because of who we are, but because He is. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Because Jesus Christ paid for our debt of sin, we have been reconciled with God. We have peace with God through Jesus’ sacrifice for sin on our behalf. Jesus said, my peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
Even though we have peace with God because we’ve been reconciled through Jesus’ substitution for our sin, we remain in the midst of a spiritual battle. The battle is not against flesh and blood but against spiritual wickedness from on high. The battlefield is for hearts and minds. The battle is a struggle between the flesh we inherited from Adam’s fallen nature and the spirit of life in Christ we received when we were born again of God’s spirt.
Therefore Jesus said, he who loses his life for my sake shall find it. According to Galatians 2:20, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”
The devil will trick Christians into accumulating a resentment bank, especially against those we love. They are the ones to whom we are most vulnerable. The devil puts us in a defensive mode to harden our hearts when we deal with those who have the ability to hurt us the most. How do you empty your resentment bank?
Pete’s son Chris is a missionary in Scotland. His wife realized that he was angry and falling into depression. She prayed for her husband and then took action… she enrolled him in a pastors’ retreat. At the retreat, his first assignment was to list of everyone who had hurt and angered him along with the wrongs they had committed. Next, he was instructed to write a letter of forgiveness to each person. He completed two letters. While he was writing the third letter he heard God’s “still small voice” saying, “They didn’t hurt you, I did. I needed to break your heart for what breaks mine. Unforgiveness breaks my heart.” Chris felt the anger and resentment drain from his heart. According to Colossians 1:13, “Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.” It’s a long hard road to come to the understanding that, “I forgave and set the prisoner free, only to find that the prisoner was me.”
Pete’s son in law sent him a devotional about Jim Elliot, a missionary to the Auca Indians in South America who wrote, “he is no fool who gives up that which he cannot keep to keep that which he cannot lose. Jesus said, take my yoke upon you… for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Every life has its own burdens. I chose to follow Christ because he bears my burdens with me. What enables a man to turn the other cheek and love his enemies? To love them with Christ’s love, we must die to ourselves. In a world of suffering, loss, and pain, our treatment of others is not to recompense to any man evil for evil, but instead to love them with Christ’s heart behind our hearts… with the unconditional gracious love of God.
Emptying the resentment bank is to embrace the truth that sets men free by giving grace and forgiveness from a heart of love. Pete often says in Marriage Encounter sessions, “there is nothing wrong with my wife that God can’t fix in me.” Pete learned that regardless of his behavior, his wife Suzan gave him grace from a heart filled with the love of God. During his quiet time he realized that if Suzan were married to Jesus Christ, she would be married to the perfect loving husband. He prayed, “Lord please make me more like you so that I can love her with your love.”
God is no respecter of persons… he doesn’t play favorites. God is a respecter of his word. The blessings of this life are on His terms, not ours. Love, grace and mercy are the nature of God himself. Love covers a multitude of sins.
In the battlefield of the mind, the first military objective is to take our own hearts captive to Christ. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but spiritual to the pulling down of (spiritual) strongholds. Casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.
Hurting people hurt others. Jesus Christ himself and the love of God is the healing balm. He said, come unto me all ye who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. When we rest in the hollow of God’s holy hand, he will fight the battles on our behalf. If the enemy is sin and love conquers a multitude of sins, then as Abraham LIncoln said, “the best way to defeat your enemy is to make him your friend.”
The perfection of God is in the love of God. According to Colossians 3:13, “Above all things put on charity, the love of God, which is the bond of perfectness.” Jesus said in John 13:34, A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another….
…that in loving others, we may live to the praise of the glory of His grace!
Your brother in Christ,
Michael
