The Healing of Memories [Part 1]

Allen Wright, pastor, Bible teacher, and author of his latest book, The Power to Bless. Praise God for any moment in your life that you didn't take offense and you could have. Every time that you don't take offense when you could have, you're giving yourself a tremendous gift.

You're giving yourself a gift of true freedom when you do that. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series From Now On as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now, a copy of Pastor Alan's book, Lover of My Soul. This can be yours for your donation this month to Allen Wright Ministries.

As you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at pastorallen.org. That's pastorallen.org. Or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. More on that later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Allen Wright. A lot of bad news going around, so are you ready for some good news? Pain is inevitable, but resentment is optional.

Forgiveness can set you free. I always, not always, but often tell at weddings, my favorite funnies, the lady that had a little secret box she kept back in the closet wouldn't let her husband look into it. It was just her secret little box and he always, year after year, said, can I please see in the contents of that box?

She said, no. And after 40 years of marriage, he came to her, he said, we've been married 40 years now. He said, please, can I now know what's in that secret box? And she said, well, okay. And she came and he opened it up. Inside was a little doily, a little hand-knit linen doily, and close to about a thousand dollars in cash. And he said, well, what in the world is this? She said, well, honey, she said, over the years, she said, when you do those little things that would bother me, and I would think about getting upset with you and maybe picking a fight with you about it. Instead, I just said, no, I'm not going to do that.

I'm just going to go and hand crochet a doily until I cool off. And he said, wow. He said, 40 years and only one doily, but what about all this cash?

What's that? She said, that's the proceeds from the sales of the doilies over the years. If you're going to live from now on, it is going to require the grace to forgive and forgive and forgive and forgive and forgive and forgive.

There's no other way. Forgiveness is so linked to our freedom that author and counselor Leanne Payne has written, healing of memories means forgiveness of sins. And I feel like I've spent ever since I read those deep, profound words, probably seven years ago, I have been still thinking about what it means.

And I feel like I'm only beginning to understand what that means. Healing of memories is forgiveness of sins. She clarified by quoting an author who said, the truth is that any wound to the soul so deep that it's not healed by our own self-searching and prayers is inevitably connected with a subconscious awareness of sin, either our own sins or our grievous reactions to the sins of others. The therapy that heals these deep wounds could be called the forgiveness of sins, or it could be called the healing of memories. In other words, we experience wounds, pain in this world is inevitable. And sometimes we condemn ourselves and sometimes we condemn others. But the pathway to a liberated mind, to a truly free soul that can enjoy today, live towards tomorrow and embrace everything that God has.

The key to that is forgiveness. And I want us today as we continue to think about that part of the mysterious Ephraim and Manasseh blessing, where we think about the name Manasseh, may you be as Manasseh, which means forgotten all my troubles. The name that Joseph gave to his firstborn son after Joseph had been through all of his troubles.

And he said, it's as though I've forgotten them. And there's never been someone other than the Messiah to whom Joseph really points and prefigures. Never been anyone who demonstrated a greater capacity to live by the grace of God and live in constant forgiveness than Joseph.

And so there's so much to learn from this story. We were here last week as we were looking at Joseph's sufferings. And I want to review this again with you in Genesis chapter 37 at verse four. This was Joseph, who was the 11th of the brothers. He would later have a younger brother named Benjamin. This is the 12 tribes of Israel. And the older brothers were cruel towards him.

We read it verse four of Genesis 37. When his brother saw that their father loved Joseph more than all the brothers, they hated him and they could not speak peacefully to him. So he just grew up in an environment of constant verbal abuse.

That's what it's describing. They just constantly bullied him. They constantly put him down and constantly ridiculed him. They did what people who don't feel good about themselves do, put others down. And they did it to Joseph.

He was their scapegoat and all of their shame. They tried to put it on to Joseph. Verse eight, we read they hated him even more for his dreams. And this is a reference to a powerful prophetic dream that God gave to Joseph from a very early age. Joseph had a prophetic gift that was very powerful.

And they assumed that this dream about these sheaves of wheat that were bowing before another sheaf of wheat, that this was Joseph saying he was going to lord over them one day as they bowed down to him, not knowing until we come to the end of the story that it was not a story about him somehow lording over them, but it was a story about God using Joseph to save them. They had no idea that's why they hated him for his dreams. Sometimes people will hate others just because they have big dreams. People who don't have dreams and people who don't know the grace of God will sometimes just hate people who do have the grace of God. Sometimes people that are just sad will hate people that are happy. Sometimes people who are unspiritual will hate the spiritual just because they are fueled by the fires of hell, which hates everything godly. You never know what makes somebody hate someone, but they just hated him and then they hated him all the more.

Instead of affirming his gifts, they kept hating him. Verse 18, they conspired against him to kill him. It's hard to wrap your mind around what this be like to have the people that should be the ones that protect you, your big brothers, instead they wanted to kill him. Verse 23, they stripped him of his robe, the robe of many colors that he wore, and they took him and threw him into a pit. Joseph's been assaulted.

He's essentially been kidnapped. Verse 28, they drew Joseph up, lifted him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for 20 shekels of silver. They sold him into slavery, their own brother. Joseph when he was in Potiphar, his master's house, Potiphar's wife tried to seduce him and Joseph resisted because he was a man of God. The wife then turned around and her bitterness falsely accused Joseph of attacking her. We read in verse 20, Joseph's master took him and put him into the prison, the place where the king's prisoners were confined.

It was a dungeon and he was there in prison. I just think it's important as you read Joseph's story to let your heart go there because it's so important to never gloss over our problems. I think sometimes we have a false hope that if we just ignore it, it'll go away and it doesn't.

C.S. Lewis said, we have a strange illusion that mere time cancels sins. He writes, I've heard others and I've heard myself recounting cruelties and falsehoods committed in boyhood as if they were no concern of the present speakers and even laughter.

But look at this. He says, but mere time does nothing either to the fact or to the guilt of sin. The guilt is washed out not by time, but by repentance and the blood of Christ. That's right.

That's right. Time doesn't do it. You can't just say, well, I'll just get over that. No, there's pain that's there and wounds that are there and something needs to happen in order for all to be healed. Everybody suffered some sort of loss during pandemic. And by the grace of God, I feel like our our losses have been have been small. Yes, we've had to have our world upended like others.

And ministry has been a fresh challenge. And and we've had some losses, you know, our own family. My son was going to be, you know, celebrating at his law school graduation that didn't happen. Our daughter is was profoundly disappointed after having raised money and was ready to go on a mission for the summer to the Czech Republic with Campus Crusade. And I hadn't seen her be any more excited about something than that.

And of course, it was canceled. And her senior year in college has been sort of a fizzle all online and and all of that. But every time, you know, that we would speak of these things, I would just say, well, but these are just small problems. You know, they're first world problems. And I kept telling the kids, listen, compared to what other people are going through, the small things. And I was telling a friend of mine this and use those same kind of words, a friend who I think really hears from the Lord.

And he said, he said, let me let me just say, you know, I submit this to you, but I think it'd be better not to talk that way. Because, yeah, they feel like first world problems and other people have had loss of life and loss of health and loss of jobs. But these are still real painful things. And it doesn't matter what it is, you know, if there's something that you lose or something that's painful, it needs to be acknowledged, it needs to be grieved, it needs to be healed. Don't just gloss over it is what the takeaway from that is.

The awareness of our pain is not so we can wallow in it, but so we can see it, externalize it, bring it before the Lord so that it can be so it can be healed. I think there's something to start this all with is the best thing to do in terms of staying liberated and in terms of the healing of memories is to discover the grace of not taking offense in the first place. Oh, praise God for any moment in your life that you didn't take offense and you could have. Every time that you don't take offense when you could have, you're giving yourself a tremendous gift.

You're giving yourself the gift of true freedom when you do that. That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. God's love. You've heard about it with your ears.

You've believed it in your mind. Now experience it in your heart with Alan Wright's beloved book, Lover of My Soul. The Bible is a love story from beginning to end. You are the spiritual bride of Christ, the perfect bridegroom. The Bible tells about a God who has gone to unimaginable lengths to woo you, to win you, and to walk with you hand in hand. For any man who has fallen in love with a woman, you've tasted the sweetness of what God's love for you is like. For any woman who has searched for true love, what you long for can only be found fully in God. Gary Chapman, renowned author of the five love languages says, the incredible reality that God pursues us in love comes to life in Lover of My Soul. Ancient biblical accounts explode in the heart. Accept Christ's proposal, enjoy His embrace, revel in His love.

After all, it's a match made in heaven. It's Lover of My Soul by Alan Wright. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support.

When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org.

Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright. Never in my lifetime have people been more easily offended. Wow, people are offended by anything. They're looking for reasons to be offended. And they take the offense to heart. And I just think that, could I just say this sort of parenthetically, beloved, during the pandemic, people have been anxious like I've never seen.

But it's a low brooding anxiety that's always there under the surface. And it's making people do unusual things. I just decided in my heart I'm going to give people a lot of grace during this period of time because they're doing some foolish things. And people are making decisions. And I'm like, I can't believe you're making that decision. People are saying things. And I think that part of the reason, and I can't prove this to you, but I believe it.

I've thought about it, prayed about it a lot. I think part of the reason that we have seen such acute polarization, you know, I'm saying where people want to just clump with others that are exactly like they are and think exactly the way they do. And I'm not talking about even into the point of just wanting to be with people that share the same nuances of every single political issue and share the exact same perspective about this. You know what I'm saying? Where people have been doing this and get really upset if somebody disagrees with them at all.

What is going on with that? That's not the way we normally live our lives. And I think it's this, when we're anxious, we can tend to look for false comfort in trying to eliminate any ambiguity in our lives. Because see, any level of uncertainty can make us anxious.

And so we want to be certain about everything. And the anxious heart dislikes dissonance of any type. We don't want there to be on the one hand, this on the other hand, that we don't like conversations.

Well, you know, I feel like this. Well, but have you thought about this side of it? We don't like that. We want it to just be clear cut black and white and everything's certain.

And I'm not going to tolerate anybody that doesn't believe exactly like I do. That's not the way we are. But people are doing a lot of that right now. And I think it's out of the roots of the anxiety that we have during pandemic. And I think it's out of our difficulty and really trusting God, the human heart is often unreliable under grave stress. And we're quicker to take offense. We've been quicker to take offense than I've ever seen in my lifetime.

And it's a big, big problem. Because as soon as you start holding unforgiveness towards someone, you have come against one of the most inviolable principles and all of God's word. Jesus himself said at Matthew 6 14, if you forgive others, their trespasses, your father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses. This is a versus, you know, do you have verses in the Bible when you love grace, like I do, you're almost like, I wish that verse wouldn't even there. You know, you ever have those like, Lord, why'd you have to say that one? You know, let me just be clear about this.

You know, I think some people read this. If this is why, let me just say, if you don't have, if you don't have the gospel theology underpinning everything in your life, then when you read the scripture and you come on verse like this, you're like, oh no, you know, and it just becomes terrorizing to you. But if you really understand the gospel and you understand that the most essential truth of the gospel and what makes it good news is that you're saved, not by your own merits, but by the merits of Jesus alone. And that you're saved by grace through faith alone.

And there's nothing that you can do to add or take away from that. When you really understand that you don't get scared by a verse like, oh no, I could lose my salvation if I haven't forgiven somebody. You think about how terrifying it would be if that's what this verse meant. If this verse meant that unless you have gone through and you have figured out everybody that you hadn't forgiven and you make sure that you absolutely forgive everyone on that, if you don't do that, then you're not forgiven and your sins against you, then we'd just be living under a constant fear of curse, wouldn't we?

So it can't be what this means. It's not what Jesus meant. But what Jesus I think is talking about here is that there is a flow of the mercy of God in our lives. So God has given us an unquenchable love and an inexhaustible grace, a mercy that's fresh every morning and just comes.

It's like a river in the desert. And that mercy and that grace and that forgiving, cleansing blood is just flowing towards us all the time. And God wants us to just experience and live in the joy of knowing that kingdom reality that we're absolutely forgiven and to know the love of God in every point in our lives.

So what clogs it up is our own stuff. And there's nothing that will shut off the valve, so to speak, of the flow of that mercy into your own heart, other than you're greater than your own unforgiveness of others. It is a principle of sowing and reaping, similar to what Jesus said, do not judge so you do not be judged.

Because what you sow, you just reap it back. And he's saying here is that if it's sort of like in 1st John where we read that if we walk in the light as he's in the light, then we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus purifies us of all unrighteousness. Is John saying that unless everything's in the light that the blood of Jesus doesn't count for us?

No, that's not what he's saying. But he's saying that when you're in the light like that, you have opened up the channel of God's grace and the purifying power of the blood is effective in your life. So when we're clogged up with unforgiveness, we are effectively shutting ourselves from the very kingdom that God came to inaugurate and pour out into our lives. Judgment makes us look for a speck in the other's eye. And that judgment that we have of constantly thinking about what someone else has done that's offended us, that speck that we're looking at, it makes us so preoccupied with figuring out and nitpicking everything wrong in them, that Jesus says is actually a log in your own eye. In other words, what Jesus teaches is that the offense that we take and the judgment that our heart renders as if we're in the place of God, that offense and that judgmental spirit, it's worse than whatever you're offended by. Because that shuts you down from the grace of God. That makes you a Pharisee. That makes you someone who is outside of the gospel reality. And that's the thing God never wants to have happen in our lives.

So if you start taking offense and you judge, then you're just going to expect that of the other. Alan Wright, today's good news message, the healing of memories in our series From Now On. Pastor Alan is back with us in the studio sharing his parting good news thought for the day in just a moment. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support.

When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, pastoralan.org. Back now with Pastor Alan and our parting good news thought for the day and the healing of memories.

Pastor Alan, what's our parting good news thought today? Well, like Joseph, we have all suffered in some way trauma, but most of us thankfully have not suffered to the extent that Joseph did. Rejected by his family, sold into slavery, falsely accused, wrongly imprisoned. If anybody ever had opportunity to harbor resentment and to get stuck in the past, it was Joseph. But instead, God sustained him with a great dream. I think the key, Daniels, we've learned to the healing of our memories is admit the offenses that have been committed against us and discover a transcendent dream. Discover the bigger plans that God has in your life. To truly and authentically forgive is not to excuse someone else or it's not to forget necessarily, but it is to say that you can so revel in the grace of God that you can live from now on. You can live from this moment forward and live as if you hadn't been hurt because God has a grace for you that is so great. If he could do that for Joseph, he could do that for you too. So what would it be like if instead of always carrying with you all that baggage from the past, you just at this moment right now, even right now, to any listener who suffered a lot and say, okay, all that might've been really bad, but from now on, from this moment forward, I live by the grace of God and everything's possible. This is the first day of the rest of your life. Live from now on. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.