We must make the effort and desire to follow His will, in this goal of sharing maximum love in a world of minimal love. It seems quite apparent, by my observation of myself and of people in general, that God reaches out to help those who are pressing in to Him. We have to want to forgive the injustices that are being done to us. Why is this a good idea?

In the last chapter I shared how Satan influences us to make a decision that will cause us to reap a painful and disheartening harvest. I also stated that we could forget that we made this decision so that when we reap the painful harvest, we throw our hands up in despair, crying, “Why did this happen to me?”

The Bible is clear on this in that it states that God will do to us what we do to others. Because of Satan's (and our own) ability to give us a memory lapse, we see little justice going on in our world. But, when we are willing to forgive without discretion, God heals us from earlier faulty decisions we made (and it is not necessary to try and figure out whether the attacks we are getting are justified or not). We are then forgiven (or cleansed) and made better distributors of His love (which is our true goal and what He created us for). When we withhold love, we sense God's love is withheld and in turn we continue to feel unloved and unlovable and are unable to love. We must break the cycle, loving all by our will. Then we will feel God's love again and love will flow through and from us to others more easily.

God is not out to “get” us with the difficult circumstances that He either allows or causes to befall us. He is, however, trying to get our attention by showing us what Satan prodded us into doing to others (even though Satan has pulled the memory rug of our doing it out from under us). Truthfully, without others coming down on us, we would go through our lives completely blind to our heart's inconsistencies. We would have no clue as to what needed to be healed in us. Whether we have justifiable or unjustifiable circumstances to deal with, how we respond can be a determiner of our heart's state. Are we responding with forgiveness and mercy or with bitterness and vengeance? Let me emphasize that it is not the event that happens to us that matters so much as it is our reaction to it. We must truly get to know ourselves and be totally honest with ourselves as we determine what needs to be healed within us. This is not difficult as the fruit of the situation will either be the peace of God or the chaos of our carnal self. God's manner of healing is quite merciful, actually, in that when irritation and anger fester in us about someone else, and we knowingly choose to forgive it, we open the hidden closet door where we had carelessly left our sinful thoughts or deeds about others and Christ's healing light can then heal us.

Forgiveness is not really about others at all. It is about us. God's children show us our unhealed, sinful areas, hidden in the depths of our hearts, by their choice to say or do something that bothers us. We must forgive them because it breaks a cycle that, if left unbroken, will lead to wounds of bitterness that fester and scar. Once the wound is open, God can shine His healing light upon it (as we forgive) and heal it away, sometimes even removing burdens we didn't know we had.

We must remember that when we make a choice that is outside God's command to love one another, we open ourselves up to His law that something will be done to bring this to our attention. It is therefore with a mighty sense of gratefulness that we offer our brothers and sisters the forgiveness they deserve (which is then given to us, healing our residual sins). Of course, Jesus died to save us from the original sin for which we are eternally grateful. But, as we mature in Him, we will notice we harvest fresh sins that need Christ's healing. These sins are hidden deep within us, where even we are unaware of them. How quickly they are revealed through the prodding of another person, who either unknowingly or deliberately, drives us batty or makes us angry.

God corrects all of us through His Holy Spirit. We are in no position to place ourselves on some pedestal of knowledge and pass judgment on people, thinking, somehow that they must be corrected NOW so that we can have some semblance of order in our world. Our world will never be in perfect order as long as we are looking through our eyes in this manner. We must recognize we are blind unless Christ is our vision.

When we're irritated and angry at anyone, unless we are forgiving, we are choosing to keep the closet door shut so that God's light cannot even begin to touch our own dark places and heal them. This isn't practical at all. This type of thinking, leads to a very circular and unfulfilling life in which we are constantly trying to fix problems we don't have the wisdom to fix.

Let us, therefore, gladly stand boldly before God's throne, willing to do God's will. We must stop evaluating others, quit keeping tally sheets of their sins, stop tapping our feet impatiently as we wait for God's lightning bolts to strike them. Why would we want those who are showing us the darkest areas of our souls to be eliminated from the face of this earth? This would leave us blindly groping our way, but never really being able to find God's mercy because our mercy opportunities are gone. Mercy given eventually leads to mercy received. This is the truth, a law, what we give, we receive.

This is not an instantaneous cure because our hearts need time to be cleansed and completely cured of infestations. But, once forgiveness has become a habit, the light begins to break from behind the clouds of doubt and suddenly you will find that everything in this chapter is true. Interestingly, it will seem like I have a wild imagination until you discover this is true for yourself. Do not drop the ball and return to your old ways. Satan does not deserve your attention in these matters. Stay focused on Christ's message of mercy. Stay focused on His eyes. Truly, they are becoming to you!

Because of our free will, God rarely changes us, unless we request it. We must go to Him before He will come to us. We must press in before God presses out, blessing our eyes with His sight, blessing our lives with what is right. Though blinding light conversions (like Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus) do happen, they are not something we should count on for ourselves.

We are not required to sacrifice anything except the dross in us that must be burned up. It only causes us problems, so we should gladly have it removed. We are not expected to give up anything except the stuff in our hearts that we've built in ignorance, thinking we needed it to survive. We now know we do not want to just survive. We want to truly live. The abundant life offered by Christ is the only way we can accomplish this. Completely opposite to what we might think, we need to give up what we have used to survive in order that we can truly live. Over the years and, indeed, over the centuries, we have built up defense mechanisms that, at first glance, appear to protect us, but, in light of what we have learned about how God uses others to heal us, we now know that these defenses actually impede our spiritual growth and make us fall into patterns of living that are “same 'ol, same 'ol.” Also they make us apathetic as our hearts' dark spots are made harder to see because we are “protected” from seeing them. If we don't see them, Christ can't heal them because He won't usurp our free will. So, too, must WE make the decision to give them up to Him. When we do, we gladly allow the impurities in our hearts, the dross, to go up in the flames of forgiveness as we humbly submit all to God. The painful part of forgiveness burns the dross in us, cleans out the impurities in our hearts, and makes us ready to receive Christ in a greater and more fulfilling way. This truly attracts the lost to us because in us they will see the solution to their troubles: Christ.

If we are tired of a life with pain that never seems to end, we must be willing to go through the task of complying with God's command to love and not judge each other. The pain of defying God's command to love will never end, as we search the world for our enemies. We will be forever finding them as they disappear in one area then reappear in another area. We'll never be able to run from them, we'll never be able to eliminate them; we'll never be able to correct them. On and on our lives will go in 3-ring circus fashion, with us never knowing in which ring the next enemy will appear, taunting us with his evil ways.

We can stop the madness by seeing correctly that forgiveness, as commanded by the Master, is the only answer. It heals us of our pain and makes no one outside of ourselves responsible for our happiness. Isn't that refreshing? Again, and it can't be stated too often, when we bear our crosses and forgive the injustices that are being done to us, WE are being healed. Our resurrection from the dead is guaranteed as we follow Christ's example and forgive from our crosses. Thankfully, few of us have ever had to suffer to the point of shedding blood.

In order to stop sacrificing our lives to the process of stomping out brush fires of evil that sprout up incessantly, we must stop evaluating what others are doing to us. We must stop comparing what, in our opinion, should be happening with what is actually happening. All this comparing and contrasting is none of our business. That mathematical formula that we use to gain a sense of balance that God is on our side, will not calculate correctly for very long. Before long, something new will pop up in which we will once again pray hopefully that someone else will be getting their just dues in the end. We need to learn, there will never be a time on this earth, when we'll have a sense that God has properly judged someone else and we can be at peace and free at last. Why? Because the very act of our evaluation is going to cause others to evaluate us (judge not lest ye be judged, remember?). We MUST keep ourselves clear of the whole evaluation process and stay focused on Jesus, never wavering even for a minute. He really is our only freedom, both eternally and now.

If lasting peace is our goal, then forgiveness must be our method. It is the only thing that offers lasting peace because forgiveness heals the problem where it lies, within us. So we must gladly lay our souls out even further, in complete defenselessness. We smile and love. We allow God's children to remove the dross, the pride, and everything but God's light shining in us. That is the one eternal item that we would keep and that God would never take away from us. Everything else is dross, which must be burned away.

If we identify with the dross, then as our dross is removed, we'll feel as if we are dying and being removed also. This can lead one to even contemplate taking his or her life. But if we identify with Christ, we'll eagerly allow the dross to be removed by God through His children and with each forgiveness given, a weight will gradually be removed from our shoulders until, at last, we sail through this fallen world, joyfully doing His will, powered by God's mighty breath of life, bringing the lost to the Lord in vast numbers. In just a little while, God will say to us, "Well done! I knew I could count on you!"

As we begin to “get it” we may find ourselves excited to share the truth with friends, neighbors and associates around us. Be very cautious and be listening to the Holy Spirit about this. Be excited within and always prayerful, learning each moment of the day how to listen to the Holy Spirit. We must understand that we are not to pound the truth into others. They will not “get it” that way. If we are ever feeling the need to pound the pulpit, and preach the sermon of a lifetime so that all in the world will, in some magical way, suddenly say, “Ah, now I understand!” we have gone beyond the scope of our duty which is to give unconditional love to all and teach by our example. If we are sensing the need to preach the truth so that others can feel the sense of freedom we have felt, we are forgetting that it was our own journey within that taught us what we have learned. Pound anything into others and we will have things pounded into us. Love unconditionally and we will have unconditional love poured onto us in wonderful abundance from both God and others. We must speak and write if urged to do so by the Holy Spirit, but never because we believe others “need” it. If we believe others “need it” others will believe we “need something” and will proceed to give it to us, despite our cries for them to stop it.

One day, we will smile our big smile and say to Jesus in our hearts, "Now I understand what You were doing with me. I thought I was living before, but now I know Your abundant Life and I'm free in You. My burden is lifted! I trust You now like I never have before. Thank You for being faithful to me and patient with me as I struggled to understand that the life I was living was as nothing compared to the life You've shown me! I love you, Jesus. Thank You, Thank You, Thank You!"

We want to gently and lovingly guide those whom God has placed in our paths. We want to remember how it was we obtained our sense of freedom, found only in Christ Jesus and never prod or push, but only encourage and love, that we, too, might be encouraged and loved always. Lest there be a misunderstanding, keep in mind that the Holy Spirit may preach a word of conviction THROUGH us and we would never want to allow any intimidation to restrict what He needs to do. Desire with all your heart to do His will at all times and you will never mistake your own wishes for His convicting revelation through you. Mountains are moved by Him. Mountains are created by us.

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