The Healing of Memories [Part 2]

Be peacemakers.

Don't take offense. Life is way too short to clock up your heart with needless spirit of offense. There are things that matter so deeply that we must take a stand.

What I'm seeing are people just getting involved with the petty. 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 Alan Wright Ministries.

As you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.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 Alan Wright. People at a TV convention would react when there was no TV in the room. Well, it just so happened that Fred Rogers, you know, Mr. Rogers, the Presbyterian minister who had the famous children's TV show, happened to be one of the people that went into the room.

It just was one of those coincidences. And so he came into the room for the stunt and for this spot. And it just didn't work because Peter Funt came and he said, well, he said, sir, he said, as you can see, we have a little problem here in the room.

And it's just, you got to see it on YouTube. Mr. Rogers is like, okay. And he said, what? And he said, we don't have a TV in the room. And Fred Rogers is reaching his pocket to pull out a tip for the man. And he says, well, that's all right. And he said, yeah, but sir, don't you understand? So there's a TV convention going on and we don't have a TV in the room. And Fred Rogers just looked at him and said, I've got more than enough TV in my life. This is fine.

And they get to try to do it. You couldn't, you couldn't offend him. And he said, well, but sir, I asked him, he said, oh no, you know, he said, I think there's probably too much TV in the world.

You know, he just kind of, he's like, this room will be fine. You don't have to just because some little thing doesn't go your way and some little part of your meal didn't get delivered to you just right to get all up in arms about it. As much as possible with you Christians live at peace with people. Be peacemakers.

Don't take offense. Life is way too short to clock up your heart with needless spirit of offense. There are things that matter so deeply that we must take a stand. But what I'm seeing are people just getting involved with the petty. We go deeper with this because here's where the real healing will come.

Start by this. Don't don't take offense whenever possible. Live in peace with people. But here's the thing. We we suffer things in this world. And what happens is I touched on last week is when we suffer those things, our responses to those traumas, our responses to those wounds, to the offenses, to the rejection. The problem is not just what we suffered.

The problem is the way our mind responds to it. And if you suffer enough over time, there is a problem that the mind wants to make sense of it and creates a narrative around it. And that narrative can be the thing that ends up absolutely steering you, guiding you through life, and you don't realize it.

This is why Paul said that spiritual formation really is a transformation that happens by the renewing of your mind, by adjusting to the reality of the true story of your life in Jesus Christ. Because the true story of your life and of your destiny is not merely limited to the things suffered. The true story of your life is all that God can do from now on.

The true story of your life is the gift of Jesus Christ for you. Some few years ago, Tara Westover wrote a New York Times number one bestseller called Educated. She was raised in Idaho, the daughter of a father, strict cultish Mormon with unusual survivalist and paranoid tendencies. She was made as a little girl to work in the family junkyard business, was injured, almost killed, abused by her older brother. And she was taught that contact with the outside world was devilish. She had no education, no birth certificate, and yet she taught herself math and reading and eventually went on to take the ACT, the standardized test for college entry. And she got into BYU, and it turned out she was very, very smart. Despite all of the trauma she'd suffered in her life, she went to Cambridge on a scholarship, was a visiting fellow at Harvard, and she returned to do a PhD at Cambridge.

And when she wrote her first paper as a PhD student at Cambridge, she had this to say in her book. I finished the essay and sent it to Professor Steinberg. Two days later, when I arrived for our next meeting, he was subdued. He peered at me from across the table. I waited for him to say the essay was a disaster, the product of an ignorant mind that it had overreached, drawn too many conclusions from too little material.

I've been teaching in Cambridge for 30 years, he said. And this is one of the best essays I've read. She wrote, I was prepared for insults, but not for this. I'm talking about a narrative in her mind. Her whole life, she'd been abused and insulted and isolated and convinced that she wasn't smart, and she wasn't prepared for this.

Professor Steinberg must have said more about the essay, but I heard nothing, she writes. My mind was consumed with a wrenching need to get out of that room. I could tolerate any form of cruelty better than kindness. Praise was a poison to me, I choked on it. I wanted the professor to shout at me, wanted it so deeply I felt dizzy from the deprivation. The ugliness of me had to be given expression. The healing of memories is the correction of a narrative that is an ungodly, incorrect response to the traumas that we suffer in this world.

Right? If somebody told you once in your life that you were no good, not worth anything, or that you wouldn't amount to anything, that's traumatic. That's abuse, and that sort of put-down hurts. The healing that is needed is that the soul has to find a way to forgive that so that it is not in bondage to it.

But the mind needs to be transformed so it doesn't believe it. That's the healing of memories. One of the things that's the most remarkable, perhaps, about Joseph's life was not just his capacity to forgive, but a man who'd been abused for his entire life. When he was 30 years old, all he'd known was abuse, false accusation, and imprisonment.

And when Pharaoh said, I want you to come and rule second in command under me, Joseph didn't run from it. He knew it's who he was. That's amazing.

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, which 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. So what were the keys to Joseph and the healing of memories and things that we can learn from this?

Let me offer a few to you. First, as I've said, is I think admitting the offense. Genesis 50 is one of the most beautiful chapters in the Bible. Verse 18, his brothers came, knelt, fell down before him in fulfillment of the dream, of course. Behold, we are your servants. But Joseph said to them, do not fear, for am I in the place of God.

Do you see the irony? They tried to put themselves in the place of God by condemning him. Now he says, I'm not in the place of God, even though he had all power over their lives.

He could have had them executed if he wanted. As for you, you meant evil against me. But God meant it for good to bring about that many people should be kept alive as they are today. And I want to just say the reason this is powerful is because he acknowledges it was evil. Evil is evil.

Wrong is wrong. Hate is hate and all of this hellish stuff that when we speak of living free from it and free from the bondage of unforgiveness against it, we are not talking about denying that evil is evil. We're not talking about denying or glossing over the pain of our lives. So admit the offense. I think that sometimes until you become aware of the offense, consciously, until you can bring it into your consciousness, sometimes it's hard for it to the healing to take place. And I'm saying you need to go back and nitpick over every little single offense in your life.

But I am saying that sometimes there are things that are silently ruling us like a tyrant that we are not aware of. And I've had moments in my life where the revelation of what was really going on with me made all the difference. What I'm saying is that, you know, just to be transparent, like, there are times where I have found myself feeling angry and it took me years to find out that much of that anger against injustice and overreacting sometimes was I never fully dealt with how angry I was at my dad for leaving home when I was in fourth grade. Until you come to a place and you realize, OK, here's where I've been hurt. This is the way that it hurt. I need to forgive.

I want to move on. Then it can have a capacity to, you know, be squirting out in the wrong directions. So that's a big part of ministry.

A big part of ministry. Some people just aren't willing ever to look at their pain because it hurts to look at it. And so we repress, we stuff down, we shove things into our unconscious.

And there, undealt with, unhealed, it festers. But boy, sometimes just even the small things you bring it out into the light and healing can happen. Leanne Payne tells a story of a woman who she counseled that began to have a major arthritis problem. Her joints were very inflamed and it seemed like it was getting worse. And one day in their counseling, it came out that this woman, this dear woman who was suffering arthritically, that she had taken on a ministry in her apartment complex because there was a woman there who was homebound and unable to do much for herself. And so pretty much every day, this woman who's suffering from arthritis, Leanne's prayer client, she would take lunch to this woman in the apartment almost every day. I mean, just a wonderful act of kindness day after day. But about 20 minutes before she would deliver the meal to her, the woman, the homebound woman, would rudely call her on the phone and say, Well, I'm here.

Are you going to bring it? You know, with this unappreciative tone. And she'd answer, Yes, I'm coming in just a few moments, you know, bring in the woman's kind of spirit of entitlement and rudeness and all. Of course, that was offensive and it went on day after day. But the way that it became unveiled to her was the woman thought, you know, it would I'm doing this act of kindness.

I'm taking the lunch. And she hadn't wanted to admit how much she was feeling offended by those daily phone calls. And she had never been willing to admit how mad she really was about that. And so in the ministry session, as she acknowledged that and she said, It's made me really mad that here I'm trying to do something good and this is the way I've been treated. And she confessed that she had been having an ungodly reaction to this. And when she confessed it and she forgave the woman, Leanne said her arthritis was healed in an instant. Now, it's not to say if you have arthritis, it's because you have unforgiveness against someone. But it is to say that these things are so interrelated in our lives that it's if there's a lot at stake. For us to be willing to admit the things that we've taken offense at.

A lot of healing at stake. So I think what Joseph says is you meant it for evil. It just proves to us that Joseph absolutely understood the evil that was against him. He never once did he try to pretend like it wasn't there.

That's not the answer. And the second thing you learn from Joseph is about this dreamer who had gotten a word from God as a young man and continued to hear from God. And I would say the second thing to the healing of memories is that we need to discover a transcendent dream. That the power of hearing from God about your identity and your purpose in this world has a way of eclipsing the pain of the past. That's really what had happened for Joseph is that God's a dream giver. That God is one who loves us and he holds us and he comforts us in our pain. But he also lifts up our head and he says, here's a purpose for which I've made you. Here is my grace that's at work in you.

Here are the gifts that I've given to you. Here's why your life matters. Here's who you are. And people that live free and clear from the pain of the past are people who have in the first instance acknowledged their pain and forgiven and refused to take offense by the grace of God. But they're also people that have heard from God and have heard from his word about who they are in Christ and about the infinite value that's placed on your life. When I talk about having a transcendent dream, it is to understand that you're fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God. It is to understand that Christ came and paid an infinite price for you and that the Bible says that you've been created for good works. Before the dawn of creation, God knew you and he knew you before he formed you in your mother's womb. And there's never been a time in which you were alone in this world. There's never been a time in which your life was without purpose.

It's just a journey to discover it all. And you have a uniqueness about you that there's no one on the face of this earth that can be you. Not one single person who has your fingerprint. Not one person who has your spirit.

No one that has your physical DNA or your spiritual DNA. There are things that if you don't do it, nobody's going to do it. There are things in this world that are blessings that will not come except through you.

There are prayers that will be prayed, not be prayed except they get prayed through you. There will be acts of kindness that will change the world that won't happen unless you do it because you're destined for that. What I'm talking about is not necessarily being famous, not necessarily being put on a throne like Joseph was, but being used of God and knowing that there's a transcendent dream in your life, that your life matters infinitely.

And when you know that, it's hard to live in the past because this is the first day of the rest of your life. And let me just mention the third thing about Joseph, and this is the key to it all. He said, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good that many people should be kept alive. Do you realize what had captured his heart was grace? Revel in the grace of God. When you think about how you could possibly forgive, just think about how God's forgiven you. When you think about whether someone deserves to be forgiven, just think about whether you deserve to be forgiven.

When you think about whether you'll ever have grace to show to people, no matter their miserable attempts to put you down, think of Jesus on the cross. For Joseph was just prefiguring the real Joseph. Jesus was the one who came into his own.

His own brothers received him not. Jesus is the one who was sold for a few shekels of silver. Jesus is the one who was hated by those that he came to save, misunderstood by those that he taught. And he hung on the cross not because he was cosmically abused, but because he chose to lay down his life as a ransom for many. And as he bled and suffocated in pain, he said, Father, forgive them.

They do not know what they're doing. He is the perfect human who never took offense. If Jesus had taken offense, we would be lost in our sin and separated from God forever. But this is the good news. Christ came exactly at the right time and died for the ungodly while they were still in their sin, because God's Messiah did not take offense at wrongs suffered, but instead loved by the supernatural grace that anointed every moment of his life. And now you, beloved, have Christ in you and you're in Christ. And so you have the divine capacity to forgive also and to move onward and live your life by the grace of God from now on.

And that's the gospel. Alan Wright. Today's good news message. It's titled The Healing of Memories in our series From Now On.

Alan is back with us sharing a parting good news thought for today in just a moment. 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. For 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. Back now in the studio sharing Pastor Alan's parting good news thought for the day. And I have to say, it makes sense, Pastor Alan. The healing of memories.

If you're going to take a step forward, you've got to tackle that. You know, I think there's such good news for us when you think about the pain in your life. If you think about this, that God is not limited by time. And in a very real sense, therefore, and it's hard to wrap your mind around this, but He's in your past. He's in your future. And He's in this moment. So we're like fish in the water. That's the way time is for us. But God's not confined.

He's not in time. So maybe it's going to come to you this way, that you begin to see that the Lord's always been with you. And He's with you now, but He was also with you when you experienced maybe a difficult trauma. Invite Him into that memory. And when you invite Him in, you begin to realize that His love has always been there for you. You'll find it is powerful to experience God's love where you didn't see it before. And with this, to take a step and say, I'm going to let go.

I'm not going to harbor unforgiveness. And when you do, this is the step towards the healing of memories. And really, Daniel, until we get healed of those memories, in a sense, we're bound up by them. So this is a step towards liberty, a step towards real freedom. And this is what it means to live from now on, from this moment forward, from this day forward, is to let go of all the binding effects of those previous traumas. It doesn't mean you can just totally forget it. And it doesn't mean that you hadn't been somehow shaped by it, but you don't have to be ruled by it. You can live from now on. Today's Good News message is a listener-supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.