There is nothing more painful for the victim than to have others coddle and embrace the wicked person who harmed them, even chastising and bludgeoning the victim to manipulate them to forgive.
I can't think of anything more twisted than this. When we coddle the perpetrators of evil we make the evil grow. As believers in Christ our job is to comfort the down trodden, not those who down trodden the victim.
There is such a thing as justice, we are only required to forgive someone if they are repentant. We are commanded not to forgive those who refuse to be sorry, God doesn't and we should not either. Consequences are the only thing that wicked people can understand. Without consequences, there is no humbling or sense of shame for evil behavior.
Ephesians 4:32…31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, outcry and slander, along with every form of malice. 32 Be kind and tender-hearted to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ God forgave you.
As Christ forgave you! How did Christ forgive? He forgave through repentance, without confession of sin there is no forgiveness, without confession of sin there is no change in the heart or behavior.
1 John 1:9
"IF we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
Did anyone notice that "IF", in 1 John? We are not forgiven by God if we will not be sorry and God does not require us to forgive when evil people will not be sorry. Just because we cannot forgive the unrepentant wicked, does not mean we automatically become bitter, that is a lie of psychology, having nothing to do with the Bible.
I have grown weary of the victims of abuse being bludgeoned and pressured to forgive their wicked abusers while the abuser feels no sense of pressure but rather even blessing from misguided self righteous believers, who desire to be seen as good by the world. Throwing the victim under the bus while coddling the evil perpetrator only serves to devalue the victim.
The requirement for forgiveness is confession and sorrow over the sin. God operates this way and He expects us to do so too. This is about reconciliation, there can be none when someone has harmed another person, is not sorry for doing so and will continue that evil unless they are stopped.
Proverbs 28:13
"Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy."
Psalm 32:5
"I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah"
The reason we have so many people in our society that believe we and God are obligated to forgive even if they are not sorry and have no intention of stopping their evil, is because of this foolish ungodly, unbiblical doctrine of forgiving even if someone is not sorry.
You will not find one scripture that says we forgive for our own sake. Forgiveness is for the sake of reconciling a relationship. Relationships cannot be reconciled if there is not sorrow over the sin.
Acts 19:18
"Also many of those who were now believers came, confessing and divulging their practices."
We are commanded to forgive when the offender is sorry, not before.
John 20:22-23
"And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”
James 4:7-10
"Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you."
We do the wicked no favors by giving them a pass on the evil that they do and we have no love or empathy for the victims when we bludgeon them to forgive without repentance on the part of the evil one.
This is the foolishness and evil of the psychological thinking of our day. The wicked man gets the compassion while the victim is pressured to forgive an unrepentant evil person. Unbelievable.
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Sometimes the worst thing we can do for people is to continually prop them up. They become weak because we have allowed them to depend on us.
Helping people is wonderful, right and good, until we are doing for them what they should do for themselves. Then we become their crutch, instead of allowing their crutch to be Jesus Christ.
Constantly propping up someone else makes them weaker. Support should be temporary, except when it is Christ supporting someone, then that help from God should be continual.
When we attempt to play God by supporting someone too much, then we are not helping them, but rather weakening them. Perhaps deep in our soul we are more concerned about being liked than we are about the overall well being of our friend.
We must realize that help becomes a hindrance to growth when that help causes our friend to depend on us rather than Christ.
The best thing we can do for our friend is to guide them to Christ, giving them a temporary boost and then letting them fly by themselves for a time to learn dependence on Christ. We can be there for them with encouragement and prayer, while allowing them to work through with Christ.
We live in a culture that praises far too much. Everyone needs to be able to do and be what is right when no one is praising them for it. People pleasers are more concerned about "appearing" helpful and encouraging than they are about actually "being" so.
The only One that anyone should depend upon is the Lord Jesus Christ. All friendships should point us to Christ at all times, making Him and His principles a priority.
When we meet someone who wants our help but rejects God's way of help, based on His principles, then we should have no other help to give them. It is time to walk away, allow them to flounder and fail until they see their need for Christ. We do no one any favors by removing their dependence on Christ.
To replace Christ in someone's life by being their help for them continually, is to play God. Notice I said "continually." We ought to be there for our brothers and sisters whenever needed, however we must be discerning to be able to know when our help is through Christ or whether it is our own desire to be elevated. We must be willing to do the hard thing to help our friend become dependent on Christ and successful in their Christian walk, sometimes that is to say no, in a kind and loving way.
Never feel guilty about letting go to let God, when the Holy Spirit is speaking this to us. Never give into the pressure of others expectations of us, we must be completely dependent on Christ to resist the pressure from others to do their will over the will of God.
Romans 12:2
"Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect."
Ephesians 5:17
"Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is."
1 John 2:16-17
"For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever."
Matthew 6:33
"But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you."
There are those who claim living together before marriage makes for a better marriage because you can get to know whether or not you are compatible. HOGWASH, these lines are nothing more than an excuse to use someone to see if you want to commit.
Everyone who engages in this practice is lacking respect and commitment. No one is compatible with another person, we have to develop compatibility through the work of learning about another person, that is not what we do in bed, it's what we do when we work out dilemmas, care enough to give up our own desires for the sake of another and from choosing to love through our attitudes and actions. It takes the love of Christ to be able to understand this commitment and dedication.
The facts show that those who live together without marriage have a higher rate of divorce than those who don't do it, it comes down to respect. If we do not respect another person enough to commit our lives to them without using them first, then we will not respect the marriage covenant either.
People are not used cars, you don't take them for a test drive, allow a serious bond and then decide later you will not bother making them a permanent part of your being, notice I said being, rather than life.
Romans 7:2-3
"2 For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband. 3 So then, if while her husband is living she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress though she is joined to another man."
God's principles are for the protection of the family and each member in that family.
We have a prayer request. My husband's sister and her husband live about an hour and a half from us, they are being evacuated from their home in the hills because of the fires.
The fires are only a half a mile away from them, the air is full of smoke and the flames are licking up around them. They are in the process of gathering their important items to evacuate. They have a couple of options for places to go to be safe. We have offered our warehouse if they or someone else needs it. The warehouse has a kitchen, bath and bedroom, so it would be adequate.
We have been watching ash fall on our car today, with the windows all open last night because of the heat, the tables in our home are covered with ash from all the surrounding fires.
Only just two days ago I had not been paying attention to what was going on and was not aware of how much was burning in our state of Washington and across the river in Oregon.
May the Lord protect the believers as they are displaced. May the Lord bring many unbelievers to Himself as they see their need to trust in Him.
You know....we can actually work up feelings by thinking about something that isn't even happening. Feelings lie to us, they tell us things are good when they are bad and that things are bad when they are good.
Isaiah 5:20 "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that count darkness as light, and light as darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!"
Perhaps this is what is meant when God says in His words, that in the end times "good will be called bad and bad will be called good", a time in which the whole world is operating from "feelings" instead of rational thinking.
The devil works feelings in people that aren't even accurate, those who give in to their feelings lack discernment as well as good sense, not to mention becoming pawns of the evil doer himself, Satan.
When we are able to evaluate things with the mind of Christ, we don't follow our feelings, we follow God's principles, not legalistically but rationally with intentionality for His glory. We feel no need to add anything to God's word to make it better. We love His word just as it is and believe what He said, just as He said it. He did all the work in relaying His message to us, all we have to do is believe Him. Hallelujah!
When we focus more on Christ than anything else we will not need rituals. In fact rituals feel silly and empty to the born again believer who walks with Christ living in them.
Rituals are for those who lack faith and have their confidence in those rituals instead of Christ. They have to keep doing them over and over again, mindlessly and continually to feel a sense of safety.
Mark 7:13-14 "13 Thus you nullify the word of God by the tradition you have handed down. And you do so” in many such matters. 14 Once again Jesus called the crowd to Him and said, “All of you, listen to Me and understand:…"
Ritual reminds me of a saying by Albert Einstein: "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result."
