Secret Fifteen: Giving Until It Hurts.

Secret Fifteen: Giving Until It Hurts.

            Before you get worried that I’m going to ask you to donate all of your money away, I’m not.  I’m not going to say but you need to give all of your money to a church or charity in need. Don’t worry I’m not gonna tell you that you need to get rid of any money. This secret isn’t about money at all; in fact money has nothing to do with this. I can’t help but think of the season we just got out of, Christmas.  Christmas is a time of year are we giving to others to show love, and that’s true.  But why is only one time if these year? Why is that we only gave during Christmas?  This secret it’s about giving but also about sacrifice. I said the “sacrifice” word!

            Let me explain an example of sacrifice, just the other day I witness something simple but it moved us all in the classroom. It was in my social problems class, we were talking about how the paychecks don’t keep up with the cost of living. The subject quickly moved to students having to choose whether to go to work or to school simply because they cannot afford the gas. We also talked a lot about selfishness and how people of power won’t give their money to people that are in need. Suddenly a girl in my class, Jenny, explained how she didn’t have enough gas to make it to school and to work and she didn’t even know if she could make it home. She thought it was important to go to school rather than to work but wasn’t sure how she was going to be able to afford the bills. Suddenly a friend of mine, Meg, chimes in and says “I have $10.00 on the right now if you want it.” Jenny looks at her and replies in a sarcastic way, “You’re kidding me right?” Meg nodded her head, completely serious. Suddenly and to all of our surprise, Jenny bursts into tears Jen kept asking Meg if she was really going to give her $10.00 Meg dropped it next to her and suddenly every girl in the class had tears in their eyes.

            What is this special about a $10.00 bill? What makes a $10.00 bills so powerful and moving it would make every girl cry? NOTHING!! There is nothing special about $10.00. There was nothing special about the money that Meg gave to Jenny. I understand that times are hard and understand that America is going through a financial crisis. But that doesn’t stop us from helping those in need. In the book of Matthew chapter 25: 31, Jesus called those on his right (the sheep) blessed because a fed, clothed, prepared a room for, cared for, visited, and gave something to eat and to drink for the least of my children… they did it for me [Jesus]. Jesus never required us to give money anywhere in the verse. In a passage Jesus required sacrificing ourselves, a gift of time and compassion for each other. To be honest I don’t think God cares about money.

            You can give a lot of things until it hurts things like money, time, talent, and materialistic thing but that doesn’t matter if you don’t do it out of love. Now that I think about it God gave until it hurt. In fact he gave his only son for us. He gave us the one thing we didn’t deserve and as humans we don’t deserve a lot of thing. Jesus died on the cross for everybody regardless of what you’ve done or will do in the future. So when I say give until it hurts are we doing it for the right reasons? Should we really give until it hurts and should be given because we all have received the greatest gift ever? Should we give because God gave to us? Something you should also know my friend, God gave to us out of love because, like I said, we don’t deserve it. So next time when you hear the phrase, “give until it hurts,” remember what God gave to us so freely and out of love.

            I’m pretty sure that Meg didn’t do it to be recognized in the court of God as an angel; she did it because that’s who she has. Meg has a beautiful personality and she, unknowingly, became a blessing not only for Jenny but also for everyone that was in that class that day. God also saw her blessing and he will give twice to Meg what she gave that day, all out of love. Although she didn’t know it, Meg became a blessing that day. We are all born blessed to be blessings.

            This time I’m going to challenge you my friends. I want you to give because you love God.  I don’t want you to give all of your money away, try giving love, time, talent or anything else you think God has blessed you with. If you feel like sharing, go ahead and leave a comment, or send me an e-mail. God bless my friends, I’m still praying for you!  

Secret Fourteen: Breathing Forgiveness

Secret Fourteen: Breathing Forgiveness

            Let me say this before we get started, I am NOT a worldwide expert on the subject of forgiveness. I am not an expert about the subject just as much as doing the subject. But let’s face it friends, we all need it. At one point sometime in our lives we have messed up regardless if it was on purpose or an accident. And at that point we’ve needed forgiveness. I am no exception to this rule; I have fallen many times with many different people. Including God and it is God that I usually forget to ask forgiveness from. This is weird to me because it is God that will always NO MATTER WHAT will forgive as well as forget the mistake that we’ve made.

Forgiveness is a common and confusing thing to most people. In our world forgiveness comes (normally) with a price: guilt, regret, even spite. But our world view of forgiveness is a wrong view. Society sometime may label forgiveness is something that the weak do, something that goes to those who don't deserve it. And some like to hold forgiveness from each other, like it’s some kind of thing we have over them. As for me, I view forgiveness as a necessity. In the bible, in the book of Matthew 6:14-15 it says "for if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sin." We all do things that hurt people; we lie, cheat, steal and hurt one another. It's human nature after the fall happen, people hurt people. So if it’s so natural for people to hurt people then shouldn't forgiveness be second nature? Answer: course not!! Forgiveness is you GIVING UP your RIGHT to HURT someone after THEY have HURT you and that is something most people don’t want to give up. That is an "out-of-human" response. It's natural for us to hurt each other; it is unnatural for us to forgive each other. We feel that if we hold on to the pain that others cause us it somehow reminds us of others (or even our own) mistakes and then (and sadly) it becomes a heavy burden we carry. We can hurt ourselves from doing that and that means...yes...we also must learn to forgive ourselves. But why is forgiveness so hard?? What causes it to be so painful no one likes to do it?? Easy. It's humbling yourself before another. When I say that you are giving up the right to hurt someone else...you literally ARE giving up the right to the other person. 

If you are asking for forgiveness you are humbling yourself before another person, that's hard to do. But for those on the other end have an equally hard task because showing mercy means to get down to the same level of humbleness and saying its okay, then letting go of all pain and wrong done to you. It's not an easy thing to do but we are required to do it. Why?? Because if we don't forgive others of their wrong doing that means when we do wrong doings God will not forgive us. He is both a just and merciful God. Meaning he will show mercy to those that deserve it. Jesus came down and died so we can find peace for our sins. Confused still?? View it like this, we as human are the broken toys in the store that no one wants, sooner or later we will be thrown away, but then, just before we are discarded, a toy maker comes and buys us all. He is able to fix us and make us whole again, but sometimes we still break. And he will continue to fix us and make us whole again. God paid for us to be repaired, he paid for our lives and the chance to be with him forever. That is the perfect example of forgiveness and it’s all because of love. But there is more to forgiveness that we realize, because we need to be genuine about it. I understand, if someone does something that really hurts you, they don’t deserve it, but remember friends…neither do we. If we want our forgiveness to be real and genuine, then let’s forgive real and genuinely to each other.

So why would I call this entry “Breathing Forgiveness?” Easy, forgiveness should be that natural. You’ll be surprised with what you find, because when we forgive others, we are setting them free but also ourselves. We are releasing that chain they had wrapped around them and we ourselves become truly free.  Remember we are no way excused from forgiving and according to the bible it is a requirement for Christians. For those of you that really want to learn more about this I would check out Matthew West’s song “Forgiveness” from his album Into the Light.

Continue to pray for me friend and I will continue to pray for you! God Bless!