ashwise Posted October 1, 2011 Group: Members Followers: 0 Topic Count: 10 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 27 Content Per Day: 0.01 Reputation: 5 Days Won: 0 Joined: 09/13/2011 Status: Offline Share Posted October 1, 2011 I'm a college student and recently had a falling out with this nonbeliever who i thought was a friend. We have not spoken in a month and whenever he sees me he likes to play the avoiding game. For example, last thurs. I was making my way to the libary and I saw him, we were going to the same place. I felt he was avoiding me because he would stall and wait for me to go in so he would not have any contact with me. I was a little hurt and upset by it and allowed it to affect me for 2 days. I feel like God is telling me to feel a little pity for him since I have hardned my heart with anger and hatred for this man. I'm just wondering if we should also feel sorry for our enemies besides trying to be nice to them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nebula Posted October 2, 2011 Group: Royal Member Followers: 10 Topic Count: 5,823 Topics Per Day: 0.75 Content Count: 45,870 Content Per Day: 5.94 Reputation: 1,897 Days Won: 83 Joined: 03/22/2003 Status: Offline Birthday: 11/19/1970 Share Posted October 2, 2011 "Love your enemies, do good to them that spitefully use you, and pray for them each day." You need to forgive - that is to let go of the bitterness. Even if all you can do is say, "Lord, I choose to forgive. Help me to forgive completely from my heart." If you have the opportunity to do good to him, do so. Pray for him. He needs the Lord and His salvation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted October 2, 2011 Share Posted October 2, 2011 Praying~! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enoob57 Posted October 2, 2011 Group: Worthy Ministers Followers: 35 Topic Count: 100 Topics Per Day: 0.02 Content Count: 41,309 Content Per Day: 7.99 Reputation: 21,513 Days Won: 76 Joined: 03/13/2010 Status: Offline Birthday: 07/27/1957 Share Posted October 2, 2011 I'm a college student and recently had a falling out with this nonbeliever who i thought was a friend. We have not spoken in a month and whenever he sees me he likes to play the avoiding game. For example, last thurs. I was making my way to the libary and I saw him, we were going to the same place. I felt he was avoiding me because he would stall and wait for me to go in so he would not have any contact with me. I was a little hurt and upset by it and allowed it to affect me for 2 days. I feel like God is telling me to feel a little pity for him since I have hardned my heart with anger and hatred for this man. I'm just wondering if we should also feel sorry for our enemies besides trying to be nice to them. No we are to love them... our lives given to their benefit of leading them to Christ. Suffering, humiliation, even death are all adaquate responses to the lost- Christ: Luke 6:35-36 35 But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil. 36 Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. NKJV Eleanor don't get after me cause I put this in red ... Love, Steven Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest agua Posted October 2, 2011 Share Posted October 2, 2011 Empathising with people is always a good thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldShep Posted October 2, 2011 Group: Diamond Member Followers: 1 Topic Count: 20 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 934 Content Per Day: 0.20 Reputation: 137 Days Won: 6 Joined: 07/20/2011 Status: Offline Birthday: 02/12/1950 Share Posted October 2, 2011 I agree with Nebula, I do not know what caused the falling out you two had, but, I'm guessing that the idea of sin came into play with it. As a male, the only reason that I would avoid you after such an event would be because I was feeling shame in the actions that I may have done. I would avoid you because I do not know how to come to you in a Godly way to ask you to forgive me. Us men do not really know how to handle the feelings we have at times and shame for actions that we may have done is one of the hardest things to over come. I would recommend that you give him time and keep on praying for him, for he to could become a servant for Christ. In Christian Love Dennis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enoob57 Posted October 2, 2011 Group: Worthy Ministers Followers: 35 Topic Count: 100 Topics Per Day: 0.02 Content Count: 41,309 Content Per Day: 7.99 Reputation: 21,513 Days Won: 76 Joined: 03/13/2010 Status: Offline Birthday: 07/27/1957 Share Posted October 2, 2011 I agree with Nubula, I do not know what caused the falling out you two had, but, I'm guessing that the idea of sin came into play with it. As a male, the only reason that I would avoid you after such an event would be because I was feeling shame in the actions that I may have done. I would avoid you because I do not know how to come to you in a Godly way to ask you to forgive me. Us men do not really know how to handle the feelings we have at times and shame for actions that we may have done is one of the hardest things to over come. I would recommend that you give him time and keep on praying for him, for he to could become a servant for Christ. In Christian Love Dennis. Neb you got nubs ah the slip of the pen can be funny... Love, Steven Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ashwise Posted October 2, 2011 Group: Members Followers: 0 Topic Count: 10 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 27 Content Per Day: 0.01 Reputation: 5 Days Won: 0 Joined: 09/13/2011 Status: Offline Author Share Posted October 2, 2011 (edited) Thanks for alll the fantanstic advice! It was making me think maybe it was my thoughts instead of God talking....I'm still praying about it.... As for the falling out, I don't really remember what happened, I guess he's one of those people who likes to put others down. Edited October 2, 2011 by ashwise Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isaiah 6:8 Posted October 2, 2011 Group: Royal Member Followers: 2 Topic Count: 426 Topics Per Day: 0.07 Content Count: 3,633 Content Per Day: 0.58 Reputation: 222 Days Won: 13 Joined: 03/23/2007 Status: Offline Birthday: 08/26/1978 Share Posted October 2, 2011 From C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity... 7. Forgiveness I said in a previous chapter that chastity was the most unpopular of the Christian virtues. But I am not sure I was right I believe the one I have to talk of today is even more unpopular: the Christian rule, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." Because hi Christian morals "thy neighbour" includes "thy enemy," and so we come up against this terrible duty of forgiving our enemies. Every one says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive, as we had during the war. And then, to mention the subject at all is to be greeted with howls of anger. It is not that people think this too high and difficult a virtue: it is that they think it hateful and contemptible. "That sort of talk makes them sick," they say. And half of you already want to ask me, "I wonder how you'd feel about forgiving the Gestapo if you were a Pole or a Jew?" So do I. I wonder very much. Just as when Christianity tells me that I must not deny my religion even to save myself from death by torture, I wonder very much what I should do when it came to the point. I am not trying to tell you in this book what I could do—I can do precious little—I am telling you what Christianity is. I did not invent it. And there, right in the middle of it, I find "Forgive us our sins as we forgive those that sin against us." There is no slightest suggestion that we are offered forgiveness on any other terms. It is made perfectly dear that if we do not forgive we shall not be forgiven. There are no two ways about it. What are we to do? It is going to be hard enough, anyway, but I think there are two things we can do to make it easier. When you start mathematics you do not begin with the calculus; you begin with simple addition. In the same way, if we really want (but all depends on really wanting) to learn how to forgive, perhaps we had better start with something easier than the Gestapo. One might start with forgiving one's husband or wife, or parents or children, or the nearest N.C.O., for something they have done or said in the last week. That will probably keep us busy for the moment. And secondly, we might try to understand exactly what loving your neighbour as yourself means. I have to love him as I love myself. Well, how exactly do I love myself? Now that I come to think of it, I have not exactly got a feeling of fondness or affection for myself, and 1 do not even always enjoy my own society. So apparently "Love your neighbour" does not mean "feel fond of him" or "find him attractive." I ought to have seen that before, because, of course, you cannot feel fond of a person by trying. Do 1 think well of myself, think myself a nice chap? Well, I am afraid I sometimes do (and those are, no doubt, my worst moments) but that is not why I love myself. In fact it, is the other way round: my self-love makes me think myself nice, but thinking myself nice is not why I love myself. So loving my enemies does not apparently mean thinking them nice either. That is an enormous relief. For a good many people imagine that forgiving your enemies means making out that they are really not such bad fellows after all, when it is quite plain that they are. Go a step further. In my most clearsighted moments not only do I not think myself a nice man, but I know that I am a very nasty one. I can look at some of the things I have done with horror and loathing. So apparently I am allowed to loathe and hate some of the things my enemies do. Now that I come to think of it, I remember Christian teachers telling me long ago that I must hate a bad man's actions, but not hate the bad man: or, as they would say, hate the sin but not the sinner. For a long time I used to think this a silly, straw-splitting distinction: how could you hate what a man did and not hate the man? But years later it occurred to me that there was one man to whom I had been doing this all my life—namely myself. However much I might dislike my own cowardice or conceit or greed, I went on loving myself. There had never been the slightest difficulty about it. In fact the very reason why I hated the things was that I loved the man. Just because I loved myself, I was sorry to find that I was the sort of man who did those things. ...... ... It is hard work, but the attempt is not impossible. Even while we kill and punish we must try to feel about the enemy as we feel about ourselves— to wish that he were not bad. to hope that he may, in this world or another, be cured: in fact, to wish his good. That is what is meant in the Bible by loving him: wishing his good, jot feeling fond of him nor saving he is nice when he is not. I admit that this means loving people who have nothing lovable about them. But then, has oneself anything lovable about it? You love it simply because it is yourself, God intends us to love all selves in the same way and for the same reason: but He has given us the sum ready worked out on our own case to show us how it works. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
georgedrw81 Posted October 8, 2011 Group: Royal Member Followers: 0 Topic Count: 7 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 1,823 Content Per Day: 0.33 Reputation: 36 Days Won: 2 Joined: 04/10/2009 Status: Offline Share Posted October 8, 2011 "Love your enemies, do good to them that spitefully use you, and pray for them each day." You need to forgive - that is to let go of the bitterness. Even if all you can do is say, "Lord, I choose to forgive. Help me to forgive completely from my heart." If you have the opportunity to do good to him, do so. Pray for him. He needs the Lord and His salvation. Right Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts