Will You Move On? (MINISODE)

Betrayal cuts deeper when it comes from those who share your faith. This minisode tackles the raw reality of church hurt and the challenging path toward healing and forgiveness.

Listen to the CHURCH HURT episode from season one

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome and Marcus Watson's Story
• 0:48 God Never Fails Despite Church Hurt
• 1:36 Forgiving Unjust Accusations
• 3:23 Healing Through God's Love
• 5:15 Call to Prayer and Book Giveaway

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey friends, welcome back to the last mini-sode of the Tribute to Masculinity. What did you think of this final episode with Pastor Marcus Watson? Man? Does he have a doozy of a story, am I right? If you haven't listened to that episode, go back and listen to that first before you listen to this mini-sode.

Speaker 1: 0:22

It's a very powerful story, and I'm encouraged to know that, even in the face of extreme church hurt, we can still cling to God. We can still stay focused on Him and trust in Him, and that is so important, because God's people are going to fail us day in and day out. We are human beings. We make mistakes, but God never fails, and we have to be able to disassociate those two things. When we go through a season of church hurt, we cannot blame God for that. He is in the middle of it, he is working, he is doing something through it, and you just need to continue to trust him and hold on to him tightly. Back in season one, I did do an episode where I talked about church hurt a little bit, so if you want to listen to that, I will link it in the show notes so you can go back and listen to it. Today, though, I really want to focus on the importance of forgiving those who have accused us of things we haven't done. It's very important that we realize, like I said, fellow believers are going to fail us. It's a matter of time. We're all human. We make mistakes, but we are called to forgive and to love our brothers and sisters in Christ. So how do you move on from being accused or being unjustly taken advantage of by somebody in the church body? That is a real question that we need to tackle and it's not going to be an easy thing to do.

Speaker 1: 2:05

I have been hurt by church people. I remember one time my family really wanted to go on a five-year mission trip to Brazil and we sold all our things. We thought we were ready. We had a heart that wanted to go. Our church wouldn't let us go. They wouldn't let us raise any funds because they didn't feel we were ready, and that wrecked me as a young Christian and young teenager and that upset my parents as well, because we sold things. We were ready to go, we were ready to do it, but somebody told us we weren't and we believed in that.

Speaker 1: 2:40

How do you recover from something like that? How do you recover from what Pastor Marcus went through. How do you recover from church hurt from people who have lied to you, taken advantage of you, deceived you? Only God, only God can truly help us forgive those people and to pray through the negative feelings and to move forward into healing. So if you have not taken your grievance to God, you need to.

Speaker 1: 3:12

It is an important thing that we stay close to God, especially in the midst of trials that involve fellow believers, because I think that's one of the things that Satan really likes is when fellow believers are against each other, because it hurts God's heart. It makes the church as a whole look terrible, and why wouldn't Satan want that? So it is important as a believer, to love those that are difficult to love, whether they're believers or not, but especially if they call themselves Christians, then we should love them the way Christ loves them. And if that's something that you can't do, then you need to reflect on that and you need to talk with God about that and find out why. And if you're waiting for an apology, you could be waiting a while, because there's sometimes you're not going to get that apology that you're waiting for and you have to accept that and you have to be willing to forgive. Anyways, this is what I want you to do for the rest of this week Pray, ask God to help you figure out what it is that he wants you to forgive.

Speaker 1: 4:24

Or, if you are the one who wronged somebody, suck up your pride and go apologize and make things right with your fellow believers, because our words can either uplift or tear down. What do you want to do with your words? What do you want to do with your actions? Actions speak louder than words. What are you doing, as a believer, to bring people to Christ rather than taking them away from him? We need to make sure that we stay focused on what is right and true, and the only way to do that is to stay close to our Heavenly Father and to do what he asks us to do, and he asks us to be at harmony as best as it is possible for us to be at harmony with each other. We are the hands and feet of Christ people, so we need to act like it.

Speaker 1: 5:12

That's today's episode. I hope I encouraged. I hope I poked a little bit at the bear that may have needed to be poked at. I hope that you heal your wounds through the love of Jesus and through doing what he calls you to do. Be in communion with God today for the rest of this time, until our next mini sewed together, and just allow him to heal those wounds. God bless, don't forget. If you haven't done it yet, listen to the book giveaway episode. It's only the first three weeks in August that you can qualify for the book giveaway, so listen to that so that you can get an idea of what it is that you're supposed to do in order to be qualified. Talk to you guys later. Bye.