Narcissistic Fools, Arthur, a Horse with no Name, and
Forgiveness– Purity 694
Purity 69 04/01/2022 Purity 694 podcast
Good morning,
Today’s photo of a friend’s view from horseback of his
travelling companions and a stream somewhere in Texas comes to us from Arthur
Cincotti as the Boston native was bold enough to capture this photo while on an
equestrian excursion back on February 23rd.
Knowing Arthur’s luck we should thank God that the horse didn’t
choose this moment to buck and to send him careening headfirst to the ground
but seriously I am sure that the horse sensed my friend’s gentle spirit and was
more than happy to bear his burden for a what appears to be a peaceful mosey
through the Texas countryside.
Well, It’s Friday and the 1st day in April and as
some will invariably use deception today to try to get a few laughs, let’s be
thankful for the fact that the outlandish things people say and do today in their
attempt to amuse themselves are not true.
“Classic” April Fool’s Day jokes usually involve telling someone
something that is not true in hopes of getting some dramatic response and then revealing
the lie by saying “April Fools!”. For
example:
“Hey, we got a call from the police department, apparently your someone
stole your car and crashed it into a tree!”
“What?!! Oh no!”
“April Fools!, Ha, Ha!”
Yeah, today, people will tell “white lies” and could create elaborate
schemes in order to deceive or just to confound others in the name of fun. Some of the April Fool’s Day jokes I have
heard about are just sort of mean and it makes me wonder why someone would do
these elaborate or downright disgusting things to people who are supposedly their
friends or loved ones.
Unfortunately, some people’s malice doesn’t take a break and the
adage “I was only joking” or “I was just kidding” is a thin cover of a narcist
or sadist. Some things aren’t funny and
continual abuse is not a laughing matter.
And I would advise those who are a perpetual victim of someone else’s “jokes”
that hurt to expose their aberrant behavior as unloving and to put the “jokester”
on notice if they are incapable of changing their “funny” ways. Narcists and sadists need to be shown that
their behavior is wrong and if they don’t learn they need to be taught that you
will no longer be their victim.
Claiming our freedom in Christ includes realizing that we are significant.
We are highly valued by God and we are worthy of love and respect. If we are in
relationships where we are not valued, loved, or respected, we owe it to ourselves
and to the God who loves us to correct the offender or to end the abuse by establishing
boundaries or ending the relationship.
As someone who has been set free from bad relationships in the
past, I know that I am thankful that I was smart enough to see the imbalances
and was brave enough to respect myself and to take action to correct the
situation. Not surprisingly, in most cases, when the imbalances and offenses were
brought to light, the offending party didn’t appreciate being called out for
their selfish or aberrant behavior, and the confrontation resulted in relational
ties being severed.
I speak in general terms because throughout my life, and especially
since coming to Christ, I have had a whole lot of relationships form and break.
Some relationships just faded away as
both parties were going in different directions and other relationships were marked
by betrayal and abuse and their endings were far more volatile.
So what do you do with your relational trail of tears, with all
the loves you’ve lost, and with all the things you have suffered?
Well to bring things back to Arthur on his horse, what if the
horse did buck and cause my friend to fall?
We could look to blame Arthur for trying to take a photo while
he should have been holding the reigns or for unwittingly causing pain or
discomfort to the horse in some way.
Or we could choose to blame the horse. We don’t know what’s going on in that horse’s
mind but from this bucking incident it is obvious that this is a “bad horse”
and is not to be trusted in the future.
This relationship scenario between Arthur and the “horse with no
name” can have a pleothora of variables and an investigation of all the factors
would have to be performed to try to make sense of this “buck and fall”
incident, but at the end of the day a decision will need to be made.
Arthur will have to decide if he will forgive that horse or not. Whether he ever decides to trust that horse
enough to get on his back again, to be in relationship with the horse again, is
one thing but either way Arthur will have to choose if he will choose to
forgive him.
If he chooses not to forgive, Arthur may be embittered towards
all horses for the rest of his life and may never ride again. Or he may choose
to not trust “brown horses” or “horses from Texas” and never trust horses of a similar
type or disposition again. When Arthur
chooses not to forgive, options are taken off the table. There will be things
that Arthur will refuse to do, or things he will choose not to do, because of his
unforgiveness. Being unforgiving make us
bitter and takes away our freedom,
But if Arthur chooses to forgive that horse, he may be wary of
horses in general, or be discerning about horses of a certain type, but he won’t
be bitter and will be more open to the possibility of future relationships with
horses. Forgiveness gives us peace and
freedom.
So today, let’s be thankful for all the bad things that won’t
and didn’t actually happen to us. The suffering we didn’t experience is no joke
and we should be thankful for it.
Also we should be thankful for the suffering we did experience, for
better or worse it was a part of our journey called life and it taught us
something.
And finally, we should be thankful for our relationships.
Our lost, bad, or broken relationships taught us something. They taught us about the evil that men, and
women, can do. They taught us what was acceptable and what wasn’t. And they
taught us how to survive and to value, respect, and love ourselves enough to take
action or to walk away from a bad situation.
The good loving relationships we have or have known make our
lives worthwhile. Love needs a relationship to operate in, and the good ones we
have is where love was allowed to flourish. Whether it is good relationships with friends,
family, or close intimate partners, those relationships should be fostered and
celebrated.
In both these types of relationships, forgiveness plays a part
in where we are now. To experience our
freedom in Christ, we need to forgive everyone for everything. Christ died for our sins and through faith in
Him we are forgiven for everything we have done and will ever do.
To represent Christ and to know peace in our lives, we must take
off the bondage of bitterness to experience the freedom that comes from making
the decision to forgive, from the heart, everyone for everything.
We are not required to re-establish relationships with those who
have been abusive or who have been proven to be untrustworthy, but to know the complete
freedom that Christ died for us to have, we are to be obedient to the word of
God and “forgive those who trespass against us”.
Well, Its Friday and it’s April Fool’s day, so let’s be careful
out there. Everything we see today may not be what it seems at first glance. We’ve all have learned that some people aren’t
who we thought they were, and we may have been hurt in learning those lessons, but
the pathway to peace that the Lord wants us to walk down is paved with
forgiveness and gratitude. So choose to
experience the freedom that comes from forgiving from the heart, everyone for everything.
And choose to be thankful for where you
are today and the good things you have in life.
If you are in the midst of a storm, follow the Lord and His
guidance. He will lead you to see how valuable you are and will lead you to a
place where you will find rest.
And if you are on the
other side of those tempests of the past, rejoice that you survived and you are
no longer bond by bitterness and know the joys of the freedom.
So keep walking and talking with God. He will teach you to
forgive and how to be thankful in all things.
______________________________________________________________
Today’s Bible verse comes to us from “The NLT Bible Promise Book
for Men”.
This
morning’s meditation verse is :
1 John 1:9 (NKJV)
9 If we confess our sins, He
is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness.
Today’s Bible vers presents the recipe for harmony with God.
I don’t plan these things but yesterday I just so happened to have
shared 1 John 1:9 because it related to experiencing being made white as snow. For our sins were as scarlet and red as
crimson, but the Lord calls us to be reconciled to Him and to have him wash all
the guilt and shame of our sins away.
I mentioned today’s verse yesterday, for those who may doubt the
forgiveness they have for things they have done since coming to Christ. Some may
think that our past sins are forgiven but may wonder about the sins that we
have done after we became Christians.
Well today’s verse was written to Christians specifically. It acknowledges that Christians are not
sinless perfect being after conversion and that forgiveness will be something
we will need continuously as we will sin by the things we do that are outside
the bounds of God’s law or we will fail to do all that we should do.
The bottom line is that we will need to be forgiven by God because we
are not perfect and rather than feel that we have failed the Lord and run off to
have a pity party and to continue in our sin, the Lord through the Apostle John
is encouraging us to confess our sin to reestablish our harmony with God and to
endeavor in our cooperative efforts with God to be cleansed for all
unrighteousness.
This wonderful news really. Okay, we are no perfect but we aren’t rejected. God accepts us and wants a relationship with
us where we can admit to our weaknesses and lean on His strength.
So if you step off the path or fall down, confess your failure and go
to the Lord and ask Him to help you to be cleansed from your sin and to help you
walk according to His righteousness. The
Lord forgives you, He loves you, and He will help you.
As always, I
invite all to go to mt4christ.org where I always share insights from prominent
Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in
Christ with their walk.
Today we
continue sharing from June Hunt’s Overeating: Freedom from Food
Fixation.
As always, I share this information for educational purposes
and encourage all to purchase June Hunt’s books for your own private
study and to support his work. This resource is available on many
websites for less than $5.00.
D. How to Decipher the Dos and Don’ts of Wise
Weight Loss
Mandisa
doesn’t want to become fixated on
reaching a certain weight … but she does
want to run a 10-minute mile.
While dropping six dress sizes in nine
months, Mandisa learned a lot about the “dos” and “don’ts” of weight loss. In
the past she had been on countless diets where she actually lost weight but
always put the pounds back on again as soon as she stopped dieting. But after
Mandisa progressed from dieting to dramatic lifestyle change, she realized for
herself: Don’t eat at random.… Do measure proper serving sizes.… Don’t eat
large meals.… Do eat six mini meals filled with fiber each day.
For anyone willing to incorporate
serious exercise into their lifestyle, the general principle is: Don’t exercise
only occasionally.… Do commit to a 45-minute workout up to 4 or 5 days a week.
Mandisa is not obsessing on the ideal
weight, but rather focusing on being healthy and fit. And she knows who will
help her accomplish all the “dos” and avoid all the “don’ts.” …
“It is God who arms me
with strength and keeps my way secure.”
(Psalm 18:32)
• Don’t
say, “I am dieting.”
Do say … “I’m eating healthy foods.”
• Don’t
start a new eating plan during a crisis, illness, holiday, or high-stress
situation.
Do … Consult a doctor before beginning
any new eating plan.
• Don’t
adopt a plan just because it worked for someone else.
Do … Adopt a personalized plan that will
work for your individual lifestyle.
• Don’t
fail to set goals.
Do … Set realistic, short-term,
incremental goals.
• Don’t
weigh yourself every day.
Do … Record your weight once a week.
• Don’t
keep unhealthy food around you.
Do … Keep healthy food prepared for
snacks.
• Don’t
shop for groceries on impulse or when you are hungry.
Do … Shop with a prepared list.
• Don’t
buy packaged food without reading the labels.
Do … Notice the first ingredients
listed; these have the highest percentage in the food.
• Don’t
eat fast!
Do … Chew slowly. It takes 20 minutes
for your brain to register that you are full.
• Don’t
keep your new plan a secret.
Do … Share with your friends and ask for
their support.
• Don’t
get caught off guard by temptation.
Do … Have an alternate plan (call a
friend, memorize Scripture, take a walk, enjoy a hobby).
• Don’t
reward yourself with food.
Do … Focus on the rewards of
self-control and a new, healthy lifestyle.
Remember
…
“The prudent see danger and
take refuge, but the simple keep going and pay the penalty.”
(Proverbs 22:3)[1]
—————————more
tomorrow————————
Join
our “Victory over the Darkness”, “The Bondage Breaker”, “Freedom in
Christ” series of Discipleship Classes via the mt4christ247 podcast!
at https://mt4christ247.podbean.com, You can
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My
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Seek, and Knock on Podbean (https://feed.podbean.com/tammalyn78/feed.xml)
Encouragement for the Path of Christian Discipleship
[1]
June Hunt, Biblical Counseling
Keys on Overeating: Freedom from Food Fixation (Dallas, TX: Hope
For The Heart, 2008), 32–33.
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