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Announcing New Resources! Three new book titles by Norm are now available to order on our website: Walking Worthy As a Son of God, Walking Worthy As a Husband, and Walking Worthy As a Father. Other new resources available are the Equipped to Love book in Spanish and a new CD or MP3 series entitled Raised Up with Christ: Seeking the Things Above. Find them all here. Chariot
May 2008 -
Norm Wakefield The Curse of the
Standard Bearers - Part
7 If this is the first article in the series that you
have read, I encourage you to read the previous articles at www.spiritofelijah.com/chariot.
Last month we considered how an ex-Standard
Bearer repents before God. My prayer this month has been that many of
you have experienced freedom before God as you've confessed living by a
form of godliness and turned to live in the fullness of a loving
relationship with Him.
Now I invite you to consider the impact standard bearing has had on the
lives of those around you. In this article, you will discover how to
repent to those whom you have wounded or rejected. •
Be
humble •
Be
specific •
Be
compassionate •
Be
trusting •
Be
loving •
Ask
for forgiveness Be
Humble
At the heart of standard
bearing is a heart of pride. Such pride causes one first to think they
have made the right choices by their own free will instead of by the power
of the Spirit of God and His grace. Second, feeling above others because
of performance, one sets himself as their judge and sanctifier. Third, as
example, judge, and sanctifier, they seek to establish their position of
significance by rewarding those who live by their standards and punishing
or rejecting those who do not. Clearly this kind of pride causes
tremendous damage to relationships.
Humility, therefore, is necessary
for repentance to be genuine and powerful. What does a humble heart look
like in the process of repentance? Here are a few qualities I think are
important and powerful for restoration of relationships. •
Invite
the one you've hurt to share how he or she has been hurt. •
Give no
self-defense. •
Be quick
to listen.
"…And
all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for GOD IS
OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE. Therefore humble
yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the
proper time"
(1 Peter 5:5-6).
According to the
Apostle Peter, God gives grace to the humble, so when you humble yourself
before the person you've injured, you may expect God's grace. You also may
expect God to work in their heart as you humble yourself before them. If
they reacted to your standard bearing in the past, it was probably in part
because of the spiritual pride they detected. Whereas people react to
pride, they are drawn to humility. Since you've already repented before
God for not trusting Him with your reputation and significance, you can
now humble yourself and release control of them.
Whether you are
a parent or spouse who has demanded that your children or mate adopt your
standards or a young adult who has rejected your parents because they
rejected your standards, take great care not to defend your judging them
and rejecting them. This is not a time to rationalize your actions or
explain how the other person incited you to sin. As James advised in his
first epistle, be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger (James
1:19). Be Specific
For repentance
to be effective, one needs to be specific about what he or she has done.
When you generalize, it may be indicative of shallow consideration with
regard to standard bearing. Make a list of what God has seen you say and
do which falls short of love for God and Jesus' love for the person
offended. You are not responsible to confess what sins they
think you have committed. You want them to know you have been in the
presence of God with your sin against them. As you confess specific
injuries and events where you have sinned against them, God will witness
to them that your confession is genuine and Spirit-inspired.
Here is an
example of specific repentance for a parent. "Son, God has given me a
change of mind about the way I have treated you. I have rejected you by
trying to make you what I wanted you to be instead of trusting God to make
the inward changes in His time. When you didn't dress like I wanted when
we went to church, I shamed you in front of the rest of the family by my
comments. My face communicated disgust for you. I expected you to think as
maturely as I thought I was, which actually displayed my spiritual
immaturity and lack of understanding of God's grace. In trying to get you
to think and act as I wanted, I now see I repeatedly rejected you as a
person, exercised control of your life, and did not trust God with you."
A young adult
daughter's specific repentance might go something like this. "Dad and Mom,
God has given me a change of mind about the way I have treated you.
Because I wanted to live my life by my own standards, which were different
than yours, I rejected you, insulted you, and brought shame to your name.
In my selfishness, I did specific things just to exercise control of my
own life, knowing they would hurt you. I dressed immodestly, hid things
from you and lied about my activities, refused to help you when you needed
it, demanded that you serve me and accept my actions, which you and I both
knew were ungodly, like …"
I've heard
parents say something like this in an effort to restore a broken
relationship with their children. "I'm sorry you've felt hurt and rejected
by us. We didn't mean to do it. We only wanted to bless you and love you.
Would you please forgive us for all the things we've done to make you feel
unloved?" Perhaps you can imagine how ineffective such repentance was. It
showed no evidence of God's having convicted them of sin of which to
repent! It reeks with self-defense and accusation as it implies the
wounded party is still at fault for not recognizing their good motives in
the midst of the hurt and rejection. There's no humility exemplified, nor
specific sin confessed. If you have been a standard-bearer and see the
destruction of it in the relationship, then deal harshly with your sin as
if you would be cast into hell if you didn't (Matthew 5:29-30). If it
applies, be specific about: ·
Your
idolatry of them–looking to them to make you happy and significant ·
The pride
you see underlying your sin ·
How
you've judged and rejected them ·
To
whom you've gossiped and slandered them ·
Your lack
of trust in God to save and sanctify them ·
How
you've tried
to control their lives ·
The
fear of rejection of your peers that has ruled your life ·
Your love
for significance and the approval of men more than them ·
The
pressure you put on them to be phony and keep up appearances that you both
knew were false ·
The anger
you expressed when you didn't get your way with them ·
The ways
you shamed them in efforts to change them ·
Can you
think of others? Be Compassionate
One of the
qualities about the Lord Jesus that endeared so many to Him was His
compassion. People knew that He knew their pain and by the Holy Spirit
understood that somehow He had entered into their pain with them. Although
Jesus never sinned or had to confess to others that He understood how his
actions had hurt them, He obviously identified with them in their pain. I
think this is a wonderful and powerful quality about humble,
Spirit-inspired repentance.
For us sinners,
it means we think about what we have put others through and seek to feel
their pain. As you repent for being a Standard-Bearer,
enter into the pain, rejection, shame, hurt, and suffering you caused by
not loving them, not leading them to God, not trusting them to God, and
not being patient and forbearing. You want someone to be that way with you
as they repent to you for having hurt you. Right? That's how you know they
have really thought deeply about what they have done and have spent time
in God's presence with regard to their sin. Before repenting to someone,
make sure you've spent time in God's presence allowing Him to show you the
pain He sees you have caused.
You might
demonstrate your compassion by saying, "I'm sure my trying to control your
life and demand that you live by my standards has caused you great pain
and confusion. You probably…" Then fill in what you would have felt if
someone had treated you like you treated them. Pray that the Holy Spirit
would allow you to feel what they have experienced in their relationship
with you. Ask to see things from His and their perspective instead of your
own. That's humble compassion. Be Trusting
One of the most
difficult things about repentance before others is to approach it like a
task with a goal of accomplishing restoration. To do so further
communicates a spirit of control and standard bearing. When you repent
with a goal to change people, your trust for the relationship is not in
God, but in your repentance. The goal of your repentance is to change
yourself, not them. Whether they respond favorably is not your business.
Restoration of the relationship and a changing of others' hearts is in God's
hands.
When we trust
God in our lives, we simply do what we do out of love for God and others.
Then we leave the results up to God. The spirit of trust flows through our
repentance. If God is going to restore the relationship, He will witness
to their hearts that we are indeed trusting God to change us and grant
reconciliation. Standard Bearers don't trust God. They trust themselves, their
efforts, their knowledge, their abilities to accomplish great things for
God, and their power. Those who don't "play along" with their agenda
usually are despised. Have you only surrounded yourself with those who "play
your game"? How have you made others feel who are not impressed with you
or who don't praise you and make you feel significant? Have you loved them
and trusted God's leading you as well as God's working with them?
To those you
have despised, overlooked, ignored, and spoken ill of, your lack of trust
in God's working with them needs to be repented of. How do you do that? By
acknowledging to them that you haven't trusted God to work in them
differently than in you and that you will from this point forward, trust
God and love them! Be Loving
Are we not
grateful to God that His love for us is not based on our performance? I
hope you can join me in that gratitude. God's kind of love gives while
expecting nothing in return. Love gives because it isn't dependent on
anything in the other person. Love comes from God (1 John 4:7). The curse
of the Standard Bearer is that
approval and love are only given when they are deserved or earned. If you
have not loved someone for who he or she is–unchanged–then your
repentance must turn from a self-focused relationship to expressing God's
kind of love.
I'm not saying
that we must accept sin. Parents must discipline rebellious children in
their homes and church discipline must be exercised with members who bring
shame to the name of Christ by practicing sin. The True Image Bearer has
biblical standards for his family, based in Scripture. When I say we are
to love someone unchanged, I mean that God's love enables us to give
discipline or instruction without anger, malice, or slander. These sinful
responses are symptoms of idolatry in the heart (Colossians 3:5-8).
God's kind of
love is the opposite of idolatry. When we look to someone to be something
for us instead of finding our total significance and joy in Him we are
idolizing that person. Therefore when we repent of being a Standard
Bearer, we repent of idolatry. When we repent of idolatry, we then are
free to express God's kind of love. We ought to love like He loves us (1
John 4:11).
So when you
repent to another person, confess you have not loved them, but idolized
them. Tell them you will no longer look to them for your significance and
happiness; then don't! Hug them, communicate that you accept them as they
are, and that your relationship with them is more valuable than their
becoming like you.
Spirit-filled
loving doesn't necessarily mean that you allow sinful behavior in your
home, however. We are admonished by God's Word to speak the truth in love.
Some parents may still have to say to adult children, "As best we know by
the Holy Spirit's guidance and the Word of God, it wouldn't be loving for
us to allow (name the action) in our home. We realize we cannot control
what you do when you aren't with us, but in our home, we would be unloving
toward God and the rest of the family if we were to allow that activity.
We're trusting God to speak to you about what He sees in that regard in
His timing. Until then, we must stand on this truth."
Such a statement
may be given in love with no expectations. You lovingly express where God
has you, and then lead them to Him. However, do everything you can in your
power to love them and honor them as a person in God's presence. Ask Forgiveness
I can't think of
anywhere in Scripture where it teaches the repenting sinner to say, "I'm
sorry for what I've done." Instead, the repenting sinner asks for
forgiveness. You simply ask, "Would you please forgive me for sinning
against you?" Then wait for their response. If they respond with anything
less than willfully granting forgiveness, then repeat and clarify your
request. Often when someone repents, the offended party feels guilty and
responds with, "Well, I haven't been perfect in this relationship either."
Instead of responding to their statement, you might reply, "I have hurt
you deeply, and I need your forgiveness. Will you forgive me for (state
the sins again)?"
You might end
your time of repentance in prayer with the person you've placed under the
curse. I encourage you to ask the Lord to break the curse over both of you
and to allow the love of Christ to flow in the relationship. Thank God for
His mercy upon you through Christ, and receive the other person as a gift
from God used to sanctify you and teach you about trusting Him. You might
pray for God's blessing upon their lives as well as the Holy Spirit's
guidance and healing power to be released in your lives.
This testimony
of ex-Standard-Bearing parents
seems to express a truly repentant heart. "We lost [our son's] heart about
two and half years ago and have sought a lot of wise counsel to try to win
him back to the Lord and us. In the process, we have come face to
face with our own shortcomings and besetting sins, which have helped push
him away. We are crying out to the Lord asking Him to transform us
and to heal [our son's] hard heart." May God hear this father's heart and
prayer, and may this gracious work of repentance be multiplied a million
times over throughout this country. Keep the Work Going! If you've been blessed or encouraged by these articles, would you please consider supporting Elijah Ministries on a regular basis or with a one-time gift? Your support helps make these articles, the monthly podcast, and weekly free MP3 sermons possible, as well as the continuation of Norm's speaking ministry. Donations can be made online to support the ministry at http://www.spiritofelijah.com/shop. Would
you like to be on the Elijah Ministries Prayer Team? The backbone of Elijah Ministries is the prayer team who pray diligently for God to turn the hearts of men to Himself, their wives, and their children. Before I leave to speak, I send out a prayer team invitation to those who will intercede for God to work for His glory in us as a team for the Kingdom. Not only is it a blessing to those whom I speak and myself; but it is also a reminder to the team about the direction of their own hearts. If you would like to enter into the labor together with me, you may go to my website and click on "Prayer Team". The Chariot is now available as a podcast. You can automatically receive the Chariot each month in iTunes by subscribing here. (An RSS capable browser such as Internet Explorer 7 or Safari is required.)
If you haven't visited our website, www.spiritofelijah.com,
please stop by sometime. You'll find: * Resources to equip you and your family * Previous Chariot articles * Norm's speaking schedule *
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I invite you to be a part of the
moving of the Spirit of Elijah in your church, community, and the world.
How?
1.
Send this article to other men or families that you know would
benefit from it. You might inform them of the previous articles
available on-line at our website.
2.
Share resources from the Spirit of Elijah Ministries with others.
If Equipping Men or Rising to the
Call have been a blessing to you, then you know it will be
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resources, or purchase a set or two as an investment in their lives. 3. Share with others what you have learned and put into practice in turning your heart to God, your wife, and your children. If God has done this in you, then He wants to affect others through you.
4.
Join the Elijah Ministries email prayer team and make
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Norm
Wakefield 05.08 To unsubscribe, click here.
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