Welcome to the InTouch podcast with Charles Stanley for Friday, February 13th. Do you have memories that still hold power over your heart? If you'd have to say yes, Then listen closely for biblical principles that can bring true freedom and restoration in healing your hurts.
Somebody hurt you a year ago, ten years ago, or a lifetime ago, and somehow deep down inside, you can't shake it.
Sometimes you say it never happened, but you know deep down inside it did happen.
So you try to deny it and that doesn't work. You suppress it, and somehow it keeps popping out, and sometimes it pops out in an embarrassing fashion. You know that deep down inside, something happened back there that you can really identify. In fact, you can point your finger toward the person. and what seemingly was merely a little hurt in the beginning.
somehow is solidified like concrete in your mind. It's just there. It lays there, it hangs there, the burden of it is there. You'd like to shake it, you'd like to get rid of it, but somehow you just can't do it. You got hurt so badly.
That somehow you feel like I will never be able to overcome this.
Well, I want to tell you, my friend, yes, you can. Because you see, if you don't overcome the hurts of the past, What you'll find out is this: those hurts can do great, great harm to your life.
So, what we have to do is, we have to decide how we're going to handle this hurt. Am I going to handle this hurt in such a way that it harms me in every aspect of my life? Or am I going to learn how to handle this hurt in such a fashion that I can take it and I can handle it properly and be able to learn something from it, glean something from it, grow up as a result of it, and not allow it to hurt me? Because God does not want us to respond to hurts in such a fashion that we are devastated in our life, lose our witness and our testimony, go through life bearing some kind of emotional baggage that we are never able to escape.
So I want you to turn, if you will, to Ephesians chapter 4. And in this fourth chapter, he's been talking about things that you and I have to deal with in our life, about renewing our mind and dealing with anger and so forth. Then he says: if you'll notice, in coming down to the close of that, in verse 30, he says. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. And we grieve him in lots of ways, and he's just talked about some of those ways by our speech and so forth.
Then he says in verse 31. Let all Look at this. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ has also forgiven you.
Now When we talk about the unforgiving spirit that develops as a result of these hurts, remember we said it's something we have to agree with. I don't have to become unforgiving, it doesn't make any difference what happens. Here's the thing that has helped me above everything else in my own personal life. And that is when I think about the fact that when the Lord Jesus Christ went to the cross, He took all of my sin on the cross with Him. No matter what I've done, whatever, do, He has already forgiven me of every single solitary thing.
How can I hold against someone else, be unforgiving toward them when He has not been unforgiving toward me?
Now, that person may be obnoxious, they may be obstinate, they might not want to be my friend or have anything to do with me.
Now, how they respond is one thing. How the other person responds is one thing, but the issue is how am I going to respond? Am I going to allow an unforgiving spirit, a hurt in my life, become a harmful thing to me? Or am I going to respond no matter how the other person responds?
Now you see, sometimes we say, well, but they did so-and-so and they, this, that, and the other. That's not even the issue. I'm not responsible for someone else's response. I am responsible for my responses to how I am treated by someone else. And all of us are the same.
So when he says here, put away all of these things that come into your life, what are the consequences, for example, of an unforgiving spirit? When he says, put these things away from you, he says, with all malice, and be kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other even as the Lord has forgiven us. What are the harms that you and I face? The first thing is damaged emotions. There are many, many people, in fact, probably most people, I wouldn't say everybody, but most people are damaged at some point in their life emotionally.
And you see, Many people live with it. They live with damaged emotions. They're not, somehow they don't recognize it. They don't understand what it is. They just know they're unhappy.
They just know they don't have any contentment.
Somehow they just can't seem to really and truly get on with enjoying life and moving ahead.
Somehow they can't lay the past behind them. And I'll tell you, one of the tragedies of life is to find somebody who's holding on to past hurts, holding on to past injury, and they can't let it go, won't let it go, refuse to let it go. It becomes their security, and then if they had to let it go, they don't know what they would do because it has become, listen, like this elephant in their life. It's this big thing in their life. Of somehow feeling and expressing and harboring and nurturing this kind of resentment and hostility.
Or one of the things, one of the areas which it causes hurt is emotional damage.
Now, think about this for a moment. When a person is feeling all of these things that he said here, anger and resentment and so forth, and they can't escape them, here's what happens: it colors everything in your life. There's no exception to this. It colors everything in your life. And what happens?
Here's what happens. Your emotions freeze. Listen, you cannot. Have hurts in your life that have caused you to become bitter and resentful and unforgiving and hostile and angry, as well as you may be able to suppress them. You know what happened?
It freezes your emotions. You cannot love. You may try to, but you can't. You can't love. You can't be free.
You can't be giving. You can't be generous. Why? Because something's frozen you up, it's hung you up, it's stuck you up. Your emotions are frozen.
Not only can you not genuinely love someone else, you can't accept it. Every single one of us wants to be loved. Every single one of us desires to be loved. Every single one of us needs to be loved. And every single one of us, listen, need to be able to love someone else.
When I think about going through life and not being able to love someone, when I think about going through life and not having someone to love me in return, tell me what in the world is life all about? If you eliminate the emotion of love, tell me, what's life all about if you don't love the Lord and have Him loving you in return? What's life all about if you cannot share your emotion? Let me tell you something. If you have an unforgiving spirit, you can't do it.
You know why?
Something freezes on the inside.
Now he says, if you say you love God and hate your brother, he says, first of all, you're lying. You cannot love God. You can't feel the overflowing of God's grace. You can't experience God's goodness. You can't receive God's soul prosperity in your life as long as there's hostility and anger and bitterness in your life and an unforgiving spirit.
And I'm here to tell you, there's no anger worth giving up love for. No anger, no hurt, no resentment, nothing worth giving up. Your love for God, his love for you. and you're being able to love someone else. And so, what happens is we carry this emotional baggage.
We freeze our emotions. We freeze our capacity to love. And listen, someone may try to love you, love you, love you, love you. And you know what?
Somehow you don't trust them, or somehow you just can't feel it, you can't experience it, you can't receive it, you can't, because you've been hurt so badly, you just can't, you don't know why you can't. And so, what happens? You have to be, you know, tough.
Well, my friend, listen, you can be tough all you want to. I'd rather be tender. He says, be tenderhearted, loving one another, forgiving each other, even as the Lord has forgiven us. And if you're one of those persons and you've wondered, well, why am I not free to love? Why can't I just give myself away?
Why can't I not do that? Maybe you need to ask yourself the question: what is there inside of me that maybe I have never dealt with, that I need to lay down, that I need to face up to, that I need healing in my spirit, healing in my soul, healing in my damaged emotions?
Well, it will certainly harm us. A second area in which I think it harms us is this. And that is, it erodes our fellowship with the Lord. You see, I cannot be right with him. I can't be free with him.
And there have been times in my life when I was not. When I was dealing with things that I knew I had to deal with, and somehow I just didn't have that freedom and liberty in my relationship to Him. It will erode your relationship to the Lord. You can't hold on the hurts, friend. You can't hold on the hurts and hold on the bitterness and hold on the resentment and be right with God.
And so, what happens? You get down to pray, and you can talk to Him all you want to, and I can tell you exactly how it feels.
Something doesn't click. You can say the things you used to say and it doesn't make any difference. You can try to conjure up some kind of thing, it won't work. Because you cannot Be unforgiving. And listen, it has nothing to do with what the other person does.
They may be forgiving and loving, or they may be hostile, angry, bitter, resentful. You know what? It has nothing to do with how I respond. It has to do rather with my relationship to the Lord and how I'm going to react and how I'm going to respond, how I'm going to receive or reject or handle those hurts. And so it will erode your relationship with the Lord.
I mean, you'd just give anything if you could just be free enough to praise the Lord and sing and just glorify God and thank Him. Can't do it. Why? Because There's something on the inside that's harming you, harming you internally, harming your relationship to the Lord. But likewise, it will erode and affect that relationship with other people, for example.
You see, a bitter person, as we said a few moments ago, they can't hide it. You can't hide it. There's no way to hide bitterness, resentment, hostility. You smile all you want, you can't hide it. You see, anything that affects my capacity to love, anything that freezes me, freezes up my emotions, and if I have damaged emotions and I have a poison leak in my emotional tank, there is no way.
Think about people who live like this. You want to walk up and they'll give you a handshake, and there's no warmth in it. You know why?
It's not because they don't want to, they can't. And you want to hug them and say, How are you doing? Praise the Lord, glad to see you. I love you, brother. They can't do that.
Why can't a person just relax and say, Well, thank you, bless you, I just love you. You know why?
It's not that I want to. I think some people I've walked away from would think, I wish I could feel that. I wish I could feel what he's feeling. I'm just saying, you're my friend. I love you.
Praise the Lord. I thank God for you. There are different ways to say that. Can't do it. I'll tell you another way it harms us.
It harms us in our health.
Now, listen, friend. If you think that you can have hurts in your life that are undealt with, and that it, and if you don't deal with it, that ultimately it's not going to have any effect upon you, you better think again. There's going to be a fuse blown physically in your body, somewhere, somehow, unless you deal with the hurts that are there. It's going to happen. God wants to get our attention in one way or the other.
Now, He'd rather us just listen to a message, get on our face, deal with it, repent of it, and move on. But if we don't, what happens? Instead of dealing with their hurts and having them healed, it is easier to go to the doctor.
Well, doctor, here's what I'm just tired. I just feel bad all the time. And um I hurt here, I hurt here, I hurt over here. And I imagine most doctors, when people walk in, they've already got a prescription. They're just hurting over this, that, and the other.
And so, what do they do? They write yet a prescription. To do what? to help alleviate your pain, not heal your problem. And so, what happens?
Agree, it's easier to go to the doctor, get a prescription. Make you feel a little bit better, but you know what happens when that prescription runs out. What do you have to do? You have to go back and get another one. And there are people who have been on drugs for years and years and years and years and years because they will not deal with the hurt.
Deep down inside, that may have happened way back yonder, years and years and years ago in their life. These are the kind of people who live for the moment. Just let me feel good for the moment. I'm not worried about the future. I'm not worried about hurt.
I'm not worried about the ultimate consequence of this. I just want to feel good right now. And I'm here to tell you it's devastating. It will damage you emotionally. It will erode your relationship to the Lord.
It will affect your relationship with other people. It will affect you health-wise. Ultimately, somewhere along the way, some fuse is going to get blown if you and I don't do what He says, and that is, He says here. He says, put away from you, let all bitterness and resentment and hostility and all these things be put away.
Now, you say, all right, suppose there is somebody I need to forgive. How do I do that?
Now, listen carefully. Let's define what forgiveness is not. Forgiveness is not justifying the other person's actions. Forgiveness is not forgetting it. Forgiveness is not tolerating it, saying, Well, you know, everybody makes mistakes, and so whatever.
It is not denying it. It is not excusing what that person's done to you. It is not saying, well, you know, inevitably time will heal this. No, it won't, unless you're willing to deal with whatever it is that's caused that hurt and pain in your life. You see, if I forgive someone, here's what I've done.
I've said I deliberately and willfully lay down, put aside this debt that you owe me as a result of somehow the way you hurt me. And so I'm going to lay it aside. I put it down. No longer hold it against them anymore.
Now, does that mean that everything is absolutely correct between us? Not necessarily, because you see, listen carefully. You and I are not responsible for someone's response to our forgiveness. You may be forgiving. God may heal you, and the other person who did something to you may not ever be healed.
They might not be interested in healing. Their malice is just as strong today as it was yesterday. And so, therefore, they may never change. But you know what? You and I are responsible for changing no matter what the other person does.
We are not responsible for another person's actions. They are responsible for their own responses. They give an account to God for their own responses. And you say, well, suppose it's somebody that hurt me a long time ago and they live in a distant state. Or maybe what they did to you, you could not even begin to share with anyone else under any condition.
Or it may suppose they died. Then what? And I think of the tragedies.
Now here's a real tragedy. I think of the tragedies, the things that happen between children and their parents. And then the parent, for example, the father or mother dies, and this bitterness and resentment and hostility, they say, now what do I do? Have I got to live with this the rest of my life? Do I have to live with this stuff in me the rest of my life?
Now I can't settle it. I didn't, I couldn't at the time, and now they're gone.
Now, what do I do? Here's what you do. And this will work. You get by yourself. You set up two chairs.
You sit in one of them and you put the other person in the other chair. That person may live on your block. But they won't talk to you and they won't deal with you. That's okay. Or they may be dead.
You put them in the other chair, and you sit in this chair. And then here's what you do very carefully. You express to the other person. all the feelings that you have. The way that you believe they hurt you.
And all the feelings that you have, let them out. And then you say to that other person, Because the Lord Jesus Christ, who is my personal Savior, Went to the cross and paid my sin debt in full, and because he has continually forgiven me over the years, I choose to forgive you for what you have done for me. And then you pray this prayer. Father, I want to thank you for giving me the power and the privilege to lay down. This hurt that has been there for years and years.
I want to thank you for enabling me to be able to forgive my father, my mother, my sister, my brother, my son, my daughter, my friend. Thank you for making it possible for me to forgive them and then accept the forgiveness. That you have given to the other person as done. And my friend, from that moment on, the healing process will take place in your life, begin to take place in your life, and what could have or was harming you and hurting you far more deeply than you realize, the healing process will begin to take place, and God will set you free. Of the hurts that would ultimately have harmed you and ultimately have destroyed you.
And I want to encourage you. It may be that you say, well, I don't know about that sitting down with somebody talking to them. Try it. If you don't want to do that, here's what you do: you write them a letter. Just write it out, all the things that you feel.
And then you express in that letter, write out your prayer in that letter, and then guess what you do? You burn it up. And with that burn goes your anger, resentment, hostility, bitterness, and all the hurts that you nurtured all those years of your life. My friend, the Father wants you free. Here's what he says: He says, if you know the truth, The truth will set you free.
And here's the truth that sets you free. When you and I are willing to be forgiving, even as our Father has forgiven us, we will be free. of the hurt We will be free of the harm. that those hurts could cause to us if we will trust him for it. And Father, we thank you for loving us.
Thank you that you have given us the beautiful example of the Savior. And all of his forgiveness of all of us down through these years. Day after day, you have forgiven us.
Now teach us how. to handle our own damaged emotions in such a fashion. That we do not let them harm us any longer. But rather, we begin to rejoice in our relationship with you. Love and be loved by others.
Give ourselves away generosity and love and kindness and tenderness toward others, so that we too will be living, walking examples of what love is really all about. For we ask it in Jesus' name and for His sake. Amen. Thank you for listening to today's podcast titled Healing Our Hurts. For more inspirational messages like this one, visit our online 24-7 station.
And if you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or InTouch Ministries, stop by intouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
