IS IT OVER?

When people argue or otherwise have issues with each other and then resolve the problem, things often go back to normal.  In the future, however, when there is another dispute, sometimes one party will bring up what the other did the last time or even a long time ago.  They may do this to each other, as a matter of fact.  When things like this happen in a relationship, it is virtually impossible to build any kind of trust.  You never know where you stand with the other person.  Everything seemed to be all right, but it turned out that things were never really okay in the first place.  The previous wrongs “apologized for” and “buried” were never really over and done with.

Sadly, many believers have the same view of God. The Lord God Almighty is the ultimate Authority Figure.  Believers tend to relate to authority figures the way they related to their fathers growing up.  If the father was unstable, abusive, or absent, or if there were a lot of different father-type figures, those who grow up out of that environment often view God as unstable, abusive, absent, or otherwise undependable.  This is one of many reasons why the family unit is so important, and also why it is essential for a family to be healthy.

From homosexuals to the incarcerated, almost to a man or woman there was an issue with the father of the house or the lack thereof, and many of these same people don’t trust God, either.  A believer who has been emotionally wounded in this way, aside from almost invariably needing deliverance, needs a real psychological healing and mental transformation in order to realize that God is always trustworthy and that when He has forgiven someone, the issue is really over.

2 Corinthians 5:20-21:  Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.  For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

Ephesians 1:3-14:  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.  In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him.  In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.  In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.

Rejoice!  God truly forgives us and lets things go.  People may be capricious and cruel, throwing things back up at us from a previous disagreement—but not God.  When He says something is over, it’s over.  As those who are born again we can rest in the Father’s love.

Psalms 103:11-12:  For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.