Matthew 22:37-40 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
As we approach the most anticipated day of the year we need to reflect upon what God would like from us for Christmas.
The simple answer is he wants us to live in a way where He lives through us and our behavior represents His ways and not ours. OUCH!!! That’s no easy task. In order to simplify this, God (Jesus) calls us to live a life where we love Him and love others (see the scripture verses above).
Notice Jesus doesn’t say to love those who love us or those we “feel” like loving or those who treat us right or those who have something we are lusting after or those who are in a certain economic class or those with a certain skin color or those with a certain body type or those who speak a certain language, or those whom we have similar interests with…it says we need to love OTHERS. One thing to keep in mind is the fact it is OK to not love others’ behavior but we are still called to love our “neighbor” regardless of the behavior.
When we are able to love without conditions and to love those who have hurt us or behave with dislike or hatred towards us and others, we are “gifting” back to God.
As a recovering alcoholic and addict I know the primary reason for “acting out” as well as relapsing back to our “drug” of choice is the harboring of resentments. With this being said, I believe it is safe to surmise the number one reason we are unable to love the way God calls us to love, regardless of an addiction, is because of resentments and anger toward others.
When we allow resentment and anger to build up and occupy our minds we are not only unable to love others but we cannot totally love God. Wait a minute Jay where did you come up with that statement? Well, I’m glad you asked.
Logic tells me that a resentment is sin and sin is of the devil and when we are harboring resentments the devil has a playground to play in. When we allow the devil to play with our minds because of anger and resentments we are harboring, he not only gets in the way of us loving ALL people but he is getting in the way of our ability to love God. We end up spending more time on the resentment (with the devil) instead of with God. Let’s support this “Jay thought” with scripture; in the 6th chapter of Matthew in the 14th verse Jesus tells us “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.” Yep, resentment is sin.
So how do we cleanse ourselves from resentments in order to spend more time with God than the devil?
It all starts with being able to differentiate the truth (God) from the great deceiver and lier (satan). Jesus tells us in John 8:32, “If you hold to my teaching (continue in my word-NKJV) you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”
Knowing the truth (Jesus) is not a one and done deal. It is all about living and staying in the Truth. You will notice that Jesus tells us to “hold to his teaching/continue in His word.” This simply means we need to spend time every day with Him through prayer and scripture reading. Then we need to try our best to hold to his teaching (represented by loving God and others) throughout the day.
During our time with Him we need to take an inventory and note anyone we are harboring a resentment with and then strive to forgive him or her. This action step will allow us to better hold to His teaching and subsequently spend more time with Him than with the devil. (Key indicators of a resentment include an angry feeling everytime you think of the person as well as being openly critical about the person to others.)
Another step in the forgiveness process involves praying daily for the willingness to forgive the other party. If you would like to speed this process up, you also need to pray for great things to happen in the life of the person you are angry towards. If you do these action steps at least daily, the resentment will be lifted regardless of whether or not you want it to be. (I write from firsthand experience as I was the “king” of resentments back in the day.)
Take a moment during this Christmas season to reflect on people you need to forgive. Then go about getting it done. By doing this you will not only feel good about yourself but God will be one happy camper as he watches this gift from you to Him unfold.
P.E.A.C.E.
