Remember how I got started on reading triple the word? (If not, you can click on the link)
I thought I should share a quick update on how that’s going.
This morning as I was having my morning chat with the Lord and acknowledging His grace in freeing me from holding onto an offence that I just couldn’t shake off no matter what, a verse dropped into my heart.
Before I share the verse, allow me to give you some background on the offence . . . since the year 2020, a young lady I had helped raise, began to increasingly speak to me with anger and disrespect. Her attitude got so bad that in 2022 she said the worst thing anyone has ever said to me. Her mother was with us at the time, and she made no effort to correct her daughter. Mark you, her mother is close to two decades older than me. I was very hurt and angry. I kept thinking “after all my time and effort in caring for her since she was a child this is how she treats me? And her mother is silent about it!” As I’ve since learnt, offence comes with the entitled attitude that “I deserve to be treated better because of what I have done for them.”
Despite my entitled attitude, I knew the offence I was harbouring in my heart was wrong and not pleasing to God. Yet, no matter how much I prayed, the offence wouldn’t go away. I couldn’t get myself to say anything other than hello to the young lady. Which in turn made me feel terrible that I was not being a good ambassador of Christ.
This tug-of-war ⏤ wanting to feel and act better, but instead holding on to the offence and being unable to speak to her ⏤ raged on and on. And doesn’t the Bible so aptly describe this struggle . . .
“For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
Romans 7:22 —25 (NIV)
But this Christmas season, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the anger was no longer there. I could actually speak to her without an inner struggle! My deliverance from God had come through without me even realising it! This deliverance is what I was thanking the Lord for this morning when this verse dropped into my heart . . .
“Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.”
John 17:17 (NIV)
And it quickly dawned on me that one of the things that had happened as I spent more time in God’s Word was that He was sanctifying me. The offence had been cleaned out — swept away just like that! See how powerful God’s word is?
As we usher in the new year, I pray that in 2025 you would purpose to spend more time in God’s word, so He can sanctify you by His truth!
Happy New Year and God bless you!