Rejection, Depression, Hurt, Love, Forgiveness, Redemption
I have a friend going through a rough spot in life, feeling unloved, and desiring to delete her profile on Facebook, so I shared the following in the comments on my friend's page:
When I was 12 years old, I was cursed at daily with "X" and "R" rated comments in school, spit upon, beaten up, and told I was ugly. I was SO DEPRESSED I wanted to take my own life, but I stopped before I did knowing it would hurt my parents.
But when I decided to live, I also decided while I may have been ugly, I was NEVER going to be as ugly inside as the people who hurt me.
Life was not easy, and after a rebuke from the family Doctor about telling me not to fight back, because a young mother foolishly thought not fighting back would cause the bullies to leave me alone, instead every bully in the school showed up to harm me, Mom told me I could fight back.
I was so mean I could curse the wallpaper off the walls in those days, and once you bested one bully, 4 to 6 more would show up to gang up on you. The only difference between those fights and MMA is in MMA you can tap out, and bullies never let you tap out, so I had to beat all of them up and I never lost. I was very mean.
Well, what changed your life then? Well, God giving me visions of demons trying to drag me to a black door which I knew was hell in my sleep, a car wreck at age 15 that I didn't die in, and finally 2 weeks later going to a Youth Revival to give Jesus a chance to change things for me in 1983.
In my life, I've given more love away than I have ever received in return, but I continue to give it away freely, because it's not about me and the people who do not love in return, it's about me standing before Jesus who saved me from the demons. It's because he loves me and I love him, and I have to stand before him one day and when he asks, "Did you share the love I gave you freely to others as I impressed upon your heart to do?" I can say "Yes, to show him that I was really his beloved friend!"
When Jesus confronts Peter 3 times in John 21, all the English translations of the Bible get it wrong, so I was really struck by what I learned in NT Greek back in 1989 while learning to translate the Bible, and there are two verbs of love used. Now there are actually 4 in the NT Greek. Agape - having a greater love for others than yourself, Philos - brotherly or beloved friendship, Eros - love between a husband and wife, and Storge - the love a parent has for a child.
Jesus asks Peter:
“Simon son of John, do you love (Agape) me more than these?”
Peter replies:
“Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I am your beloved friend (Philos)!
Jesus repeats and Peter responds the same, but this is why Peter is hurt the 3rd time, because Jesus uses Peter's verb instead:
“Simon son of John, are you really my beloved friend (Philos)?"
'The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, are you really my beloved friend?” Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Are you really my beloved friend?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I am really your beloved friend.”
Jesus said, “Feed my sheep. '
John 21:15-17
See forgiveness is not something I do for those who have wronged me, rather it is something I do for myself.
Forgiveness in the NT Greek comes from the marketplace, its verbiage comes from the imagery of taking an item off the shelf so it can't be sold.
If you owned a slave in the times of slavery and then gave the slave their freedom, no one could buy them from the marketplace of slavery, they were free from it.
Forgiveness is really about letting go of the past where you were hurt and living in the newness of today, not allowing myself to be a slave to the time I got hurt, and since Jesus purchased my freedom from the Devil on the cross, why do I want to go back to demons trying to drag me to hell in my sleep?
I have bad days, I get depressed, sometimes, I feel like giving up, and sometimes I feel like deleting all my social media, and going and hiding in a cave somewhere.
But that is what the servant given one talent of gold by his master did, he buried it.
The real gold in the kingdom of heaven is the pearl of great price, it is people, not money, that is the treasure, to dare to go out and invest and love people.
The one talent is God's love in Jesus whom he sent to die for us, and can we take that one love and multiply it?
For certain, there are more people who have rejected my love, than have received it and returned it and taken it to invest in yet another besides themselves.
The Bible calls such people fools, goats, chaff, whores, sorcerers (selfish manipulators).
That's okay because I can forgive them, and pray for their redemption, but if they fail to talk to Jesus before they die and find salvation and become gold instead of salt that is too full of sand and must be taken and thrown out, or chaff to be burned, or the bad fruit on the tree that must be chopped down and throw into the fire . . . well, when they stand before Jesus just like the goats, they will ask, "When did we see you?" And he'll say, "Whatever you did to the last of these (ie, George, Ellen, insert your name here), you also did to me." Vengeance is mine saith the Lord, so I can let go of a lot because Jesus has got this, I don't have to carry the burden of it.
See, Jesus is the gold of love I can't bury and at times doing that means it is a cross to bear, and crosses are painful, never pleasant, and one day they will take your life, but instead of dying on the tree of death, that tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden, because there is no evil in God, instead this cross because of the gold which is Jesus' love which purchased me from the marketplace so the devil couldn't own me, that cross becomes Eternal life when I die, because the same Holy Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is with me from the moment I am born again, until I die, to walk me over the river of Jordan, so the river of death does not undertow me to hell, and to the shores of Eternity where Jesus is, and hopefully, on the straight and narrow path, I found some treasure to redeem from the Devil so God could own it, to bring with me, so we all have an Eternal Day with no more sin, no more suffering, no more death.
40 years ago, a prodigal found Jesus in a revival, and the cross has not always been pleasant to bear, but the paraclatos - the one who comes alongside to help (real translation of comforter or advocate) has been with me all this time, helping me endure until I can cross that Jordan.
Revelation says:
'Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. '
Revelation 22:1-2
So see, I don't have to worry about being perfect, the leaves from the Tree of Life in the New Jerusalem found multiplied, are for the healing of the nations - people, and that is also me.
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