This is the Truth Network. The heart of every man craves a great adventure, but life doesn't usually feel that way. Jesus speaks of narrow gates and wide roads, but the masculine journey is filled with many twists and turns.
So, how do we keep from losing heart while trying to find the good way when life feels more like a losing battle than something worth dying for? Grab your gear and come on a quest with your band of brothers who will serve as the guides in what we call the masculine journey. The masculine journey starts here now. Welcome to Mascone Journey. We're glad that you're with us today.
I don't know that you'll be glad when we talk about this topic. I'm not really sure. This is a topic I think that. Most humans struggle with for sure, but also most Christians struggle with. The topic of forgiveness.
Jim, were you going to say something? No.
Okay, well you grabbed the microphone, so I thought you were going to say something. Forgiveness is something that it's not optional, really. I mean, God kinda makes it optional if we don't want to be forgiven. And when you uh when you listen to the Lord's Prayer, right? He kind of makes a statement there that you need to forgive others.
It's in scripture many times about forgiving others. It it's part of our Christian walk to forgive others, but what makes it so difficult to do? Right, what makes it so hard to do? And and is conditional forgiveness forgiveness? I mean, there's so many ways we can talk about this topic.
It's just running through my head trying to formulate, okay, where do we land on this thing? Because it's something that I think I know I've struggled with. consistently in my life.
Sometimes doing well with it, sometimes not doing as well. Uh and it it's hard to kind of really know what to do.
Well, another aspect too sometimes is you get confused over forgiveness or You know, there's also setting boundaries to prevent things from happening again. I mean, we're supposed to forget seventy times seven, but we're also, I think, supposed to be wise and not allow those things to come in. just because we're forgiving somebody, you know, just to let them to con continually repeat with no accountability. Yeah, a and I think it's to understand forgiveness doesn't mean I don't remember what happened. It's just I'm longer holding you accountable.
Right. Right for that, I'm releasing you of that. And to your point, Andy, it may not be a safe situation. You can still forgive without re-entering into that situation. Just because you forgive doesn't mean you're called to a relationship with that person.
And so, some of the questions that came to me, and we'll play it the bump, the song that really made me think about this topic again. Um A song called Love Like That Cross by Jesus Country, and we'll talk about that when we go to break. But the the topic of forgiveness really made me think about What makes it so hard? Why why does God require it? How does it feel to be forgiven?
And there's lots of ways we can go with that answer. And what's it feel like to forgive? And there's lots of ways you can go that answer. Because you think that forgiven, to feel forgiven, would always feel, oh, that's great. But sometimes it it it's almost the opposite.
It's like I don't deserve it. Right, that someone's given it to you out of grace and you realize I don't really deserve that forgiveness. Right, and so you got the enemy that's in the mix of all that. It's just a very, very difficult topic. One of the things that and when you brought that up, I I am much more likely To not want to accept forgiveness than I am to give it.
I'm a reasonably forgiving person, I think, but. But uh and It's sort of like Giving Anything. I feel better about giving than I do about receiving. And, you know, if Darren. loans me half a million dollars.
I'd be appreciative, but I'll Not sure I could take it. Oh, I could. And I said, Darren, because he doesn't have a mic, that's why I didn't. Yeah, but it receiving forgiveness is Is something that I hadn't even thought of when this topic was mentioned, and that you brought that up kind of. hit home with me.
Yeah, it it's it's not as easy as it sounds. Especially when you know that you did something wrong that deserve doesn't deserve forgiveness, but they they m makes you wonder why they'd want to give you forgiveness sometimes. You know, you've hurt somebody so badly and you know, I think of that in a marriage relationship, how that happens, or you think about that in best friends situation, 'cause if you've been a best friend for s somebody for very long, at some point you're gonna cross that bridge. Where you've really been hurt by that friend. go ahead and punch me and then you can forgive me kind of thing.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Harold, did you want to add something to that? Our attitude about forgiveness ought to be guided by the knowledge that there is a God And he ain't me. That's true.
Nobody put me in charge of the universe. that I can hold or give forgiveness depending on my whim. Mm. I can't believe you didn't do an age joke there, Sam. I thought about it.
No, I didn't want to have to ask for forgiveness.
Well, if it's a funny joke, I'll give you a heads up because I'd like to hear it as well. Yeah, I didn't have anything funny, so I was just posing there.
So we will actually go to our first clip. And we have a mix of. We forgive you. Thank you. We have a mix of clips, but we're going to play one of our most used movies for the first clip, and then the rest of the clips for this show and the next show, I don't think we've ever used before.
So that that that'll maybe get you to want to hang on after Jim's clip. When I talk to George about this, I ask him to find that scene for me. He's my AI. I just got familiar with the last couple of weeks. And he wanted to know all of my faith.
I said, it's one of my top 10 movies. And he said, well, what are the rest of your top 10 movies?
So that was an interesting conversation. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the topic. But Josie Wales. Do you ever have to forgive your AI agent? Not yet, George.
But I'm sure I will. This clip is: if you haven't seen the movie, it's pretty violent, but watch it anyway. It's worth it. But uh Josie Wales is a farmer and his family is killed and he joins the Confederate. folks and Missouri and Kansas, that was some of the ugliest fighting.
in the war. and Fletcher, who is in this scene, Was his commanding officer of the unit he was in and uh They are surrendering to the Yankees they were fighting and his everybody is wiped out except Fletcher, who was a turncoat and turned him in, though he didn't know they were going to kill him. and Josie, who ends up uh starting to kill just about everybody that's wearing blue in the in the Movie, and this is their final confrontation after a lot of. Rough times, and he is ready to. settle in with the family he sort of collected on the way.
And you'll hear the family defending him and saying he's dead. And Fletcher knows him, and they're sort of, as you put it, posing there, pretending not to know each other.
So listen to that and we'll chat about it a little at the end. Mm-hmm. I don't believe that story about Josie Wales. You don't? No, sir, I don't.
I don't believe no five pistolaires could do in Josie Wales. Mm-hmm. Maybe it was six. Could have even been ten. I think he's still alive.
Yeah. Oh no, sir. Uh I think I'll go down to Mexico. to try to find it. Yeah that's He's got the first move.
I owe him that. I think I'll try to tell him the war is over. What do you say, Mr. Wilson? I reckon so.
I guess we all died a little a bit more. The um And he's actually wounded in that scene and he sees him bleeding on his boot. But uh Josie does. Rodolph in the sunset. But it it's That one really hit me because this is somebody that the betrayal to Josie was.
Yeah. It was a good friend. And he did about as awful thing by having his other friends shot and he doesn't know that that wasn't part of the deal but they were surrendering. And it uh Being able to forgive in a case like that as a human was tough, especially for a warrior. And I think most men at some level or other, and we are created to be warriors, are just that.
and to forgive an enemy. That's a very hard thing to do. And I have had Very few of those in my life, but the forgiveness that was toughest. people that I considered enemies I didn't really Give enough, and I've really only had one person that I said, I hate this person. That's the only person I've used that word with.
But I've had people I've been opposed to. But None of them were ever close enough to really hurt me. And this was the case. where that uh The toughest wounds and the hardest forgiveness, I think, comes when it's someone that is really close to you. Which was my biggest point in this.
Yeah, and they the obviously have the ability to cut you the deepest. Right, 'cause they are that close to you, you're the most vulnerable with them. Absolutely. And so that gives them a lot of power to do that. And the enemy loves to twist that and turn that.
take it in different directions. Forgiveness. It it's something that You know, I think we understand the concept of it, to but to really know it in our heart deeply Takes time for God to process. Right, well we're going to find a similarity in all the clips that we played today. or today, tonight, whenever you listen to this.
We're playing them now, but you'll hear it whenever you hear it. But All have a common theme. There's a period of time that had to take place, for something to be done. Yeah, for Josie He had to go through a lot of anger and a lot of, I'm going to get revenge, kind of feelings to get to the point where he realized that's not where his answer was.
Well, there's some clichés out there like time heals all wounds. Right. Which is a lie, it doesn't, but it can help when God is also working in the midst of that time. if if that time is spent just hating if that time is spent refusing. Um if it's spent just you know kind of boiling in.
the pain, the hurt, whatever, then Yeah, that time is probably not going to be really productive. But if. If you can be humble enough to say Yeah, that, you know. Um I hurt them, they hurt me. whatever.
And start that process of forgiveness, maybe even before you ever meet the person. I don't want to tell your story, but that you know, you've told that story before. And you can later if you want, but Um I think we've all had that, where we've had to forgive some people that By reason of time, we won't see them again. Um not in this life anyway, and maybe not in the next. But um But that still doesn't mean that there's not a need for forgiveness.
And so time with God. Can heal all wounds. Absolutely. I mean, the old saying is: you know, unforgiveness keeps one person captive, and it's you. Yeah.
Right? It's not that other person. It's holding your heart in bondage, and that's what God requires. And we're going to talk more about that when we come back. But go to masculinejourney.org for the upcoming boot camp.
It's a weekend before Thanksgiving. Andy, what are those dates? November 19th through 22nd. At masculinejourney.org. You can go register while we're at break.
What we have at our boot camp is something that makes you stronger and gives you the strength to go on your regular walk with God. It's something that will make you be bigger than you were when you got there. God's really touched my heart. He's shown me that he loves me. He put his hand on my heart and says, I love you, Mike.
And that's the way my dad used to, you know, used to. Tap on my heart, give me a squeeze with my hand, and then tell me He loves me. And I'm wonderfully made. And God loves me the way I am and who I am, and He's going to be there with me. I have the tools now from this boot camp to follow Him and conquer the enemy that comes against us every day.
God loves us and shows us that here. Register today at mascularjourney.org. Yeah, if I can love like that cross. open wide, forgive when it hurts, and swallow my pride. Oh no.
even when they're gone too far. Bleed a little grace instead of scars If I could give what I don't got Pour my heart out no matter the cause, Lord, I change. James is broken heart. If I could love like that. Welcome back to Masculine Journey.
That's, as we talked about before the break, that's a group called Jesus Country, and the song's Love Like That Cross, and that's the chorus. And it's probably uh For the last probably six or seven months it's been one of my favorite songs. I can't hardly listen to it without getting emotional 'cause there's some piece of that chorus that hits me every time. Right, that if I'm really going to try to walk in Jesus' shoes to try to get like him, to become more and more like him and try to get there, I have to love like the cross. Right, and one of those pieces that we're talking about today is forgiveness.
But there's so much more to it, that's just one of the big steps. You know, um I guess I've made a history of When I'm really honest with myself, more of conditional forgiveness than anything. I'm I'm gonna forgive you unless something similar to this happens again. Right. Yeah.
Yeah, as long as you're really remorseful and you stay remorseful forever for the rest of your life and never slip up. And then I'm just identifying patterns. I think that's called probation. Yeah, people are in constant probation with me, I think. They don't have to wear the little ankle bracelet or anything, but it's pretty close.
But. God's really challenged me on that a lot and pushed me to That's a faithless Forgiveness. That's not believing that that person can change and God's working on them, or that allowing God to change me in the midst of that. Right. Everybody loses in that scenario.
There's there's no real win there. You know, we were talking earlier about um Kind of why. And obviously, if if God did it first, He always leads. I mean, He did it first. And we just come off Easter, and that's what the story is about.
And you got two examples. of Peter And Judas. Judas, Jesus the example was to wash his feet, knowing good well what he was going to do. And it really causes crucifixion. I mean, that's he's sold out.
But then I think one of my favorite stories in the Bible is: Peter felt. Horrible. After denying Jesus three times. That was his buddy, you know? And he denied him three times.
And what Jesus does on that shore. Of the Sea of Galilee when they went fishing and he had them breakfast cooked and he had that interaction with Peter. I mean, that was an example of stepping in. I mean, it was a process that he took Peter through. He didn't just say, I forgive you.
He let Peter know that each one of those denials. He was saying, I want you to now take this love I've given you and give it back. And it's just a powerful example, I guess. you know, timely. coming off of Easter.
Yeah, th that was part of where my mind went on this was, you know, obviously Easter was last weekend and there's a big piece of that's forgive us, right? Forgive them, Father, for They know not what they do, you know, that we're forgiven of our sins because of Jesus' actions. You know, all that that kind of part that plays in there. Andy, we're going to actually go to your clip.
Next, because I think I wanted to get to a point that sometimes that forgiveness is really, really close to home. Yeah. It makes it harder to do. Mm-hmm. So this is from the movie, I can only imagine.
Not the second one that's out now, it's the first one. It's about Bart Millard, who is the lead singer for Mercy Me. And it's just a powerful story of forgiveness because he had a mess. Of a family situation as a kid. His dad was abusive.
Obviously, you'll hear that in this clip. And his dad has finally begun to realize what he's actually done and wants to make a change. And as he comes back into Bart's life, you'll hear this. Mark doesn't trust him. A lot of times, when people want to reconcile and forgive, we trust their motives.
We distrust their motives, and this is what you hear here. And it takes a while, it takes a process now. And I'll tell the rest of the story after the clip, but. Um Bart has been away from the family, came back and and saw seen his dad. You'll hear all the what his dad's been doing to work on himself.
But again, you hear I mean, it wa it's not always easy because the memories are fresh in our in our minds of how we've been offended. No, Bart was already singing with the Christian group at this time. It's not like he went to the bottom. And made it big, but he was definitely a Christian and following in that, and he knew better. I'm sure he knew better.
But, you know, God has a way of working things out for him. Here we go. I'm gonna say grace. All right. It's not good.
Um God. It's me here. Arthur. I wanna thank you for... Answering my prayer.
And uh Rub it up, Doug. Thanks for the grub. Emil, see you. Found God or something?
Well, I've I've been listening to some preachers on radio and uh R uh reading the Bible and whatnot. We'll part. Uh all of it. And uh couple of times and I actually And uh It's pretty confusing. It's Like Leviticus.
What is that? I don't I don't get it. What prayer? She said, God answered a prayer with prayer. I'm seeing you again.
Oh dad, I've been busy. I've been uh rebuilding the Jeep of mine. And I was Hoping that maybe we could uh Get it running again and... Yeah. Go somewhere.
What are you doing? What is this? I was just trying to make a memory. That's all.
Well, it's kinda hard for me to do, Dad. Because all the memories that we have together are bad.
Okay. Yeah. Son, I know that I did some things that I'm doing. I got a memory for you, Dad. That night you beat me so badly?
Did I sleep on my stomach 'cause I was so bruised? Can you move? What was I, ten? Eleven? And now you just want to come back in here, make breakfast, Pretend like nothing ever happened.
It doesn't work that way, Dad. I want to make things right with I don't know what to say. I don't know how to do it. I'm trying. I'm reading a lot of books I don't understand, and I...
It's got a lot of questions and about myself. I don't have nobody to... Good answer. I'm for me. You've come.
It did. He goes on there. Um. His his dad, um His dad says, Well, you know, um I wished God could forgive me, He forgives others. And Bart says, Well, God has forgiven you, but I can't, basically.
And You know, again, there was a process. And that's what we do a lot of times. It's God's job to forgive the person, but it's not mine. Where God Clearly tells us to do the same. And we're more like him when we do that.
But a lot of times we're like, I can't. But it takes a process, I think. You know, that you were talking about time. Time doesn't heal. But the process of forgiveness through time that takes time.
So it's not the time that heals, it's the process, and it takes time. Um I mean hi he had a mess. I mean he at the same time he had He had, uh, his girlfriend, I think, was getting too close and he pushed her away. He went back and apologized to her. And you know, this is a real movie.
This is basically somebody's life. They really lived it. It wasn't just Hollywood. And. you know, he found out shortly after all this, he went out mad after this, got in his dad's truck and found his dad's cancer prognosis that he was staged for, I think, and died shortly thereafter and there was healing.
That took place.
Sometimes it takes stuff like that. I'm going to lose this person, and I don't want to go to the grave without having. Reconcile that, and we don't always get that chance, and it's just a lot of times we get hung up over pettiness. But what's cool, I'll just leave it at this: is we've all heard the song I Can Only Imagine. And it's just him thinking about what it was like when his dad entered into eternity because he knew he had gotten right with God.
A very powerful song that's made an impact on a lot of us of just an imagination of what things would look like if we were in heaven and and that and I think Yeah, Song probably wouldn't have been possible if he hadn't reconciled with his dad. Right, because it came out of his life experience. Exactly. you may be sitting there thinking Well, it's too late, the person's already passed away. Right, or maybe I'm not in a relationship with them.
anymore and it's not safe to have a relationship. That doesn't stop God from calling you to forgive them. In three situations for me, Um There's been situations where I ha God's called me to forgive people. I either couldn't be in contact with. I had a sister That was uh not very nice.
Um had some mental issues I found out later on, but it was not safe to talk to her. but that didn't stop God from calling me to forgive her. Right, and he worked on me and worked on me until I did that. never made a difference in our relationship, it made a difference in my upward relationship. In all my other relationships.
My dad had already passed away when God called me to forgive him for some things. You know, it's for a long time the enemy would say, Well, that's pointless. But it's not 'cause God still has the power. He's outside of time. You know, and then probably the one that surprised me the most was to forgive my mom for some things, 'cause I absolutely adored my mom.
I would have said she walked on clouds, you know. I mean, there was nothing she did wrong, but God said no. She was human, and there was some stuff you need to forgive her for. You know, and then you dealt with the shame of why should I have to forgive somebody who was such a good person? But God knew the answers to all that and got around all those objections.
And that's just a few things of my story, and I'm sure everybody else has similar stories. where God said, Okay, no, we still need to work on this because My child is holding you in bondage. Yeah, they may be gone, but your heart's not, and the heart's where it's taking place.
Well, and it makes you put up walls in other relationships, it does. You may not see it that way, but you become very conditional and transactional. Because you don't want to be in a place where you can get hurt again. Most of our life operates out of this feels like that. Right.
Right? when you know you did something That caused me to feel a certain way, let's say. And I. Your mind and your enemy is both going, hey, doesn't that, doesn't that feel just like when that other person did that? Doesn't it?
And so the, again, he's called the accuser, right?
So he's accusing. you know, that other person Of having done something that someone else already did a long time ago. And it doesn't have to be that exact same thing, it doesn't even have to be close. But if if it Causes the memory, if it causes a little bit of that feeling, then Um he Is got a foothold at that point. And now you don't have to let him keep the foothold, but.
That's the way that we operate often. I mean, w we teach children that way. Don't touch that, it's hot. And then they touch it, and ow, it's hot. And, you know, and so we learn from bad experiences.
And it's the exact same way in relationships, except. You don't forgive a hot stove. But you can forgive somebody that you're in a relationship with, and you're going to have to keep doing it. To Andy's point, the 70 times 7, you're going to have to keep doing it. Probably math measures, that's not, you know, just something you can calculate and count them off one by one, right?
Terry, I know you wanted to say something. We'll get to you in the next show, if that's okay. I can't wait to hear what that is. Maybe God's calling you to forgive somebody. Maybe that forgiveness is of yourself.
Or somebody that's no longer around, or somebody that's in bed next to you. You know, God knows who you need to forgive, and He knows how you need to forgive, and He knows the right time in which you need to forgive. You can't force that either.
So walk with Him in all that you do, and lean into Him on this forgiveness topic. We'll talk with you next week. Let God love on you this week.
