Monday, April 26, 2010

Blessing and Curses

Matthew 5:44 - But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you...

OMG! There are some incredible things taking place within our church. We have been through a lot over the past several months with various degrees of loss and a sense that there truly is a change taking place within our own family of God. And God is to be praised for every thing that occurs. We may not fully understand what's happening, but God does and that's okay. That's all that matters. God truly is doing a work in our midst. He truly has brought healing in the midst of trouble and He continues to do so. He is about to pour out His blessing on us, I'm sure.

Pastor Paul Hanson, our interim lead pastor, spoke yesterday on blessing and curses, Giving the Blessing. The point of the message was "Let each of us determine that we will speak the blessing of life to each other and about each other." There were three main points regarding the words we speak: Words have substance, words transmit good or ill and words reveal what is in our hearts. 

The Word tells us that with our tongue we speak both blessing and curses. That's our sin nature at work. We can praise God in one breath in church, get into our car and immediately speak ill of another motorist or a family member. What's that all about?Hypocrites! All of us. 

I truly believe we have come to a crossroads in our life at church. At least that's the way it appears to me. And I definitely feel it applies to me too. We see the disaster in our country looming before us and we might feel hopeless to do anything about it. But God...He is there for the weary in heart, for any situation life might bring. None of us will escape some sort of disaster. But we can speak blessings upon these situations.


Rather than grouse about it, we might consider blessing our enemies...whoever they might be...could be anyone. Disaster might be looming in our own home. Disaster might be looming at work. How will we react? Will we curse the ground our boss, our mother-in-law, our brother, our mother or father, our spouse...our president...walks on? Does this curse help? Or does it only become a festering sore in our hearts?

I realize it's not always in our hearts to bless our enemy. It may be awkward to ask God to bless someone, especially when we feel we've been wronged. But it is our obligation...as children of God. I've heard the more we do it, the easier it gets, and we might even lose the anguished feelings in our hearts. God will bring a transformation if we only do what is right. How I love our God! Even more, how He loves us.

I think God is speaking to His people and wanting us to bare our souls, strip ourselves of our selves and let Him do a work He needs to do. Pastor Paul drew the whole sermon together by saying that we speak curses because of some inferiority which produces: anxiety, obsession with ourselves, hostility (anger, criticism), superiority mirage or martyring (blaming). At some time in our lives we have all be dealt a blow to our own egos. Somewhere, somehow, we have been hurt by the words of others. And because of this, we continue by thinking more highly of ourselves than we should (Romans 12:3).

There is good and bad pride. Good pride is in how we can be proud to be a child of God, forgiven, saved. The bad pride, however, starts with this feeling of inferiority. We all have it. There are those who feel in the bottom of their hearts they are no good, they are not loved, they will never amount to anything...and so their thoughts perpetuate this inferiority complex. And so they have become and are.

There are others who mask inferiority with an attitude of superiority. And that's just what it is...a mask. In God's eyes we are neither inferior nor superior. We are not greater than the next person, nor are we superior to them. We all come into this world as equals. It's the words that are spoken to us that create these wrong attitudes. Try getting the world to understand this concept! Try not believing the lies!

It's all about respect. First we must respect who God is and His place within our lives. Then we need to respect ourselves as His children, then all others...we must see as God does. Jesus died for all mankind, not those who seem worthy, for none of us are. God is holy, He is worthy of our praise, He is worth of our respect, our reverence. He will bless us with His gift of salvation so we might have relationship and communion with Him. We cannot accept the gift and then live our lives as though He has done some great thing for us and live as we desire, without any thought of who He is. He is so worthy of our desire to be in relationship with Him.

Back to blessings and curses. We were told that one of the things we must do as Christians is bless our enemies. We can so think in our minds that so-and-so just doesn't deserve to be blessed. But God...says it is our obligation to bless them. What comes out of our mouths, is what our heart attitude is. OUCH. The Word says A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks (Luke 6:45).

If we want to be part of the family of God, we must bless those with which we are at odds, not just to those we find it easy to do to. Jesus didn't just spend His time with those who followed Him day after day. He sought out the unlovely...the woman at the well, adulterers, lepers, sinners, rich men, poor men. Don't think for a minute, either, that He didn't know that Judas would betray Him. Yet He loved him as well. So how can we think more highly of ourselves? How can we think that this person or that does not deserve our blessing? Oh, what a hard word this is. 

If we want to be part of the family of God, we must act the part because for every idle word we speak (and perhaps even think) we will be accountable for someday to God (Matthew 12:36-37). 

Lord, I pray that you would strip me of the things that keep me from being the person You desire me to be. Tear down the walls in my heart and spirit. Help me to see through Your eyes, with Your heart and Your compassion. You had compassion on all people. You became angry when Your Father was disrespected, yet You never treated anyone with disrespect. You admonished because of Your love for all. You desired that all would understand what You stood for. That relationship, that gift of salvation is what You desire for all people so that you can wean us from the inferiority, the superiority, and criticism we hold on to. I thank You that You reveal these things to us in due time that we might be set free from it.

The conclusion of the message was: We declare the curse broken and the blessings flowing. We will not accept that we are being healed, but that we are! We are going to speak as though it were in our lives and in our church body.

Proverbs 18:20-21 - A man's stomach shall be satisfied from the fruit of his mouth; from the produce of his lips he shall be filled. Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.

1 comment:

  1. BEING ... and ... ARE. So critical to know the difference ... so well said!

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