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Keys To Thriving In This Season (Forgiveness)

Cross Kingdom Sermon of the Week

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  1. You're listening to the Cross Kingdom Sermon of the Week, we hope you enjoy

  2. this message from Justin Carpenter. You know, I know y'all thought I was

  3. like thirty, but you know I actually I gotta be honest with you.

  4. I actually was looking in the men'saw yesterday at hib at some of the hair

  5. dye, and and I was like, where's Troy? Where Troy go?

  6. He was back there a minute ago. Would he sneak out of here?

  7. Stinker? Now? I wasn't gonna out him. I'm listen, I'm a

  8. pastor. I would never do anything like that. So I was laying in

  9. my pool yesterday getting a little sun. This is not blood pressure. And

  10. I was laying there and I asked the Lord, said, what do you

  11. want me to teach on? Lord? I said, I really, I

  12. was really burdened for a word for the body because of everything that's going on

  13. and and even all the shakings that were seeing among leadership in Texas, specifically

  14. Dallas. How we've seen you know, TD Jake's under allegations a few months

  15. ago, which that's not over, I promise you. Then we we within

  16. what a two week period of time, Tony Evans, who I listened to

  17. him for years and loved his teachings, don't know exactly what's going on there.

  18. And then obviously the big the big Shaker was just in the last little

  19. bit with Robert Morris. And you know, a burden that I'm carrying,

  20. which I do believe is from the Lord in this hour for the body,

  21. is this as the Lord is purifying his church. You have to understand something.

  22. Anytime personal sin, unrepented personal sin becomes public, it's not because God

  23. took delight in exposing someone. It was because they were grieving the spirit for

  24. a very long period of time, given plenty of opportunity to repent privately,

  25. and ignored it. And I just want to say this up front, there

  26. are sins for leaders fivefold ministry, you know, elders, I believe without

  27. a doubt there are sins that permanently disqualify you, not from not losing your

  28. salvation, not being healed or restored, but permanently disqualify you from being a

  29. shepherd or a fivefold And I really don't care everybody agrees with that. When

  30. it comes to issues of like what was just exposed, it's heartbreaking, extremely

  31. heartbreaking. When you find out that a young woman was actually twelve years old

  32. and a minister's twenty one years old, that is a crime. That is

  33. not something that elders get to keep quiet in the name of love. And

  34. he never should have been put back as an overseer after that. I'm sorry.

  35. There's a cost, just like you're going to begin to see ministers die

  36. premature deaths in the future. See. I think it's Bobby Connor that said

  37. we're way too familiar with a god we heard. We know we are in

  38. a very sticky transition in the body of Christ right now. On one hand,

  39. the world is going to always mock and make fun of when leaders fall.

  40. The other hand, people that have been hurt in the church, that

  41. are struggling with their faith right now, that adds fuel to the fire,

  42. That adds accusations of the enemy to try to get them to be permanently stuck

  43. in a ditch and fall away. See, it says many there's going to

  44. be a falling away, and it doesn't necessarily give a whole lot of detail

  45. to the falling away. But I'm telling you right now that one of the

  46. most important things is that you don't allow the lawlessness of others to kill your

  47. love for Jesus and people, period, and that and and that is one

  48. of the biggest dangers we're in right now because these, like I said months

  49. ago and years ago, it's like, I don't know about y'all, but

  50. some of the exposures like Holy Cow shocking, like legitimately shocking. You know.

  51. Scripture says if you take heed, you know, or it says if

  52. you stand take heed. In other words, don't puff up. The response

  53. of us in the body of Christ right now should not be arrogance, should

  54. not be like ha, they got what they deserved. No, it should

  55. be for healing, restoration. Now it's not always into what position they had.

  56. But Jesus didn't come to destroy life, but to save it. And

  57. I'm not gonna read the whole chapter like I did first service, but any

  58. Ezekiel nine, you actually see six men, and they come to the sanctuary.

  59. And these men as you read, you actually find out these men are

  60. a and you see with you see a man with an inkhorn, and it

  61. says, now this is verse three Ezekiel nine. Now the glory of the

  62. God of Israel had gone up from the cherub on which it rested to the

  63. threshold of the house, and he called to the man clothed in linen,

  64. who had the writing case at his waist, this is an angel, This

  65. is not just a human being. And the Lord said to him, passed

  66. through the city through Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the

  67. men who sigh and groan over the abominations that are committed in it. So

  68. here's a picture. We've had abominations in the Church. We've had We've had

  69. leaders that for some reason got into a place of arrogance where they thought they

  70. could hide their sin or or cover it up, or leave very important details

  71. out and just carry on as life as usual. Can I tell you,

  72. if you have wilful habitual sin in your life, repent pent And if you're

  73. in a place of influence as a leader, you're accountable. And if you're

  74. passing judgment on these leaders that have fallen, take it easy, because you're

  75. going to give an account for your life before the Lord Jesus as well.

  76. And the old adage of he without sin throw the first stone, and he's

  77. marking. So what our response should be in the body of Christ is when

  78. God's purifying and drawing us close. We need to be in a place of

  79. humility, and we need to be in a place where we actually are mourning

  80. over the sin that's been exposed, the sin that's been tolerated. It's sin.

  81. It's not just mistakes, y'all. But too many times we were like,

  82. oh, yeah, they made some mistakes. No, it's sin,

  83. unless you forget Jesus was beaten beyond recognition as a human being because of our

  84. sin and the moment that we're tempted to take our sin lightly. Because remember,

  85. there's original sin, imputed sin, and personal sin. That's the way

  86. sin affects original adam imputed from the law, personal or wilful. All of

  87. this is written for us to live a life of godliness, of righteousness,

  88. of holiness. It's not written for the world. It's written for us,

  89. and it's specifically addressing sinful issues that were in the church. So this man

  90. with the inkhorn, he literally's going any and all of everyone who actually didn't

  91. celebrate the abominations, didn't tolerate them, but actually they were sighing and groaning.

  92. They were grieved over it. We had to be grieved over the crap

  93. that's been allowed in our country. We had to be absolutely grieved over the

  94. injustice that happens within our government. We should be grieved over the fact that

  95. we're losing leaders because they didn't stay accountable, they didn't stay humble, they

  96. got people around them. Unfortunately that we're willing to compromise things. But it

  97. does not negate your commission. It does not negate that Jesus is still Jesus,

  98. and at the end of the day, he's the author and finisher of

  99. our faith. He is the one we're supposed to keep our eyes on.

  100. If you get your eyes off the Lord and you put them on man,

  101. you're going to want to quit because I got news for you. The moment

  102. you shift your gaze from him to around you, that's Greek for you're gonna

  103. be done. Because every single person in here is in process. And if

  104. we do life together long enough, guess what we're gonna bump into each other's

  105. processes. Hello, marriage, friendships. But then we we get offended,

  106. we'll get arrogant. Well, I would never do that. They're not doing

  107. it right. I call those the cheap sheet seats, taking shots from when

  108. you've got no skin in the game. So as I was Again, this

  109. was my long intro as I was talking to the Lord, and I've not

  110. talked about this for quite a while, but and I want to say this

  111. up front that this key or these keys to thriving in the season, it's

  112. not just about thriving in the season. It's literally about thriving in your relationship

  113. with Jesus, thriving in the Kingdom. Don't get caught in the season throwing

  114. mud. If you have a temptation to become a thumb war person on social

  115. media, don't, It's not worth it. I want to talk to you

  116. about a foundational key, and that's forgiveness. And this is what I specifically

  117. heard the Lord say to my heart yesterday that forgiveness is an absolute key in

  118. this next season. Now understand, forgiveness is always key, because without it,

  119. you're done. Right. I tell people, only forgive to the degree

  120. you want to be forgiven. Who wants to be fully forgiven? Then you

  121. don't have a choice. I just I don't know. I'm trying to be

  122. creative the second service. I didn't do that first service. But the reality

  123. is there's a lot of stinking teaching when it comes to the issue of forgiveness.

  124. And I'm afraid there's a lot of times where people have honestly tried to

  125. put their best foot forward in this issue of forgiveness and have gotten stuck because

  126. they haven't been given proper teaching on forgiveness. I asked this first service,

  127. who has been told it doesn't matter what you feel, just you know,

  128. by make the wilful choice, by your will, just forgive right. Question,

  129. if you had the ability to totally forgive someone in your soul completely and

  130. forgive everyone, what do you need Jesus for? How is it that we

  131. think it's about living in the spirit, walking in the spirit, But then

  132. when it comes to this issue of forgiveness, all of a sudden we have

  133. soul power. I will will my forgiveness. No, you want to punch

  134. him in the face. How about this? You thought you forgave someone right,

  135. You're like, Lord, I forgive them totally. Oh, I bless

  136. them in Jesus' name. Three weeks later, you see them, all of

  137. a sudden, you don't feel so good about being around them. All of

  138. a sudden you're like, ooh, because you can lie to yourself, but

  139. your body won't lie to you. In other words. You can intellectually lie

  140. to yourself, but what you really believe in your heart's gonna uncover you.

  141. And then you go into a tailspin because you're like, I forgave them,

  142. I forgave them. We'll get to where you get stuck and unstick you,

  143. hopefully if you're stuck this morning. What's your name? Yes, you,

  144. Darlene. During worship, when I was playing drums, I looked over at

  145. you, and the compassion of the Lord is drawing you right now in this

  146. season, and he is softening you your heart to horrible wounding that you've gone

  147. through, that you've tried to run from, that you've tried to mask,

  148. that you've even tried to cover up. But he loves you. Weigh too

  149. much to let you walk around with that pain. And I saw bruising in

  150. the spirit on you that the Lord's going to heal that specifically, is going

  151. to give you new eyes to see life. There's a lot of things that

  152. you've been carrying around that you are blaming yourself for right now, and it's

  153. false responsibility. The little girl didn't deserve it. And the Lord loves you

  154. with an unconditional love, and he's not what your fears have worried about.

  155. He's good, he's trustworthy, and he is safe. Bless you. Oh,

  156. come on now, No, I don't never mind that, y'all.

  157. I had the craziest thing this week, and I'm staying on this forgiveness thing.

  158. But the Lord led me to do something as an act of generosity this

  159. week that I'd never done in my life. And Anthony was with me.

  160. Where'd he go? Anthony was with me and he was waiting on me where

  161. we were at, And anyways, I told him what the Lord laid on

  162. my heart. And I get to the truck and that little thing happened like

  163. five times. I thought I wasn't going to make it in the truck and

  164. was just, I mean, just lit up. And I heard the Lord

  165. say to my heart that generosity is your weapon. See, y'all, our

  166. weapons of warfare are not cardinal, but they're mighty in God for the pulling

  167. down of strongholds. And it says that we have weapons of righteousness in our

  168. right and in our left. What you need to do in any given moment,

  169. and says Lord, what is my weapon? Because just because this weapon

  170. was your weapon last week doesn't mean it's the same weapon this week? Are

  171. you with me so, Matthew six twelve, fourteen, and fifteen, And

  172. forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. For if

  173. you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But

  174. if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your heavenly or will

  175. your father forgive yours or your trespasses. You know, that's one of those

  176. scriptures that we all would love to paraphrase and change up and soften up just

  177. a little bit, but we can't. What if your desire to draw the

  178. forgiveness process out has way more to do with you wanting judgment in your heart

  179. than it does actually releasing someone. Are you with me? If you've been

  180. told to take your time with forgiving, I don't mean processing, don't misunderstand

  181. me. I don't mean processing the pain, the trauma, getting your heart

  182. healed, but the issue of forgiveness, the debt, the trespass. If

  183. you've been taught to just take your sweet time and just let it you know

  184. as you get to it, that's fine, that's hogwash. That's secure humanism

  185. with a religious mask. On it. What if Jesus just took his time

  186. to forgive you, if he just kind of took his time carrying the cross

  187. and be like, oh, I think I'm gonna slow down. I don't

  188. know. Well, hold on, I don't you know. And this is

  189. exactly where Peter found Peter's always looking for an angle, right, He's also

  190. always looking for an ear. Then Peter came up and said to him,

  191. Lord, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him?

  192. He's looking for the legal right out of this thing. And he's probably thinking

  193. of one of the other disciples. How much you want to bet they live

  194. together all the time. Peter was probably annoyed with Thomas because he was doubting

  195. everything. Thomas, come on, let's go. I don't know if I

  196. can make it. Thomas, let's multiply the food. I don't know if

  197. it's gonna happen. Thomas, as many seven times Jesus said to him,

  198. I do not say to you seven times, but seventy seven times. And

  199. by the way, one of the Gospel says, in a day, Hello,

  200. do the math people? Four hundred and ninety times? Who has ticked

  201. you off? Four hundred and ninety times in one day. Don't look at

  202. your spouse four hundred ninety times and guess what even if that was realistic,

  203. a literal legalistic four hundred and ninety times, tomorrow I get to jack with

  204. you four hundred ninety more times. That's not the point. The point is

  205. total forgiveness. Total. But Peter's as human as we are. He's looking

  206. for a way out of this thing. He's like, four hundred and ninety

  207. one, I'm punching you. Come on, well more, come on,

  208. Oh, keep it coming. Keep he's print winding up. Oh, come

  209. on. Every one of y'all have been in that place where somebody really ticked

  210. you off, where you wanted to give him some five fold ministry. I've

  211. been there. Hello, Internet world, your pastor's been so angry he's wanted

  212. to do five fold ministry. In this life, you will have trouble understatement

  213. of the year, Maybe Jesus, could you capitalize that and put that and

  214. read too, But take heart of overcome. See, when I get into

  215. a place where I want to hold on to unforgiveness and make somebody pay,

  216. it's only because of all the lies I believe. But if I actually allow

  217. the Lord to expose the lie based thinking that I think about unforgiveness, then

  218. forgiveness becomes effortless. It actually stays of a thing of the spirit rather than

  219. the soul. Therefore, the kingdom of Heaven may be compared to a king

  220. who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle,

  221. one was brought to him. He owed him ten thousand talents, and since

  222. he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold with his wife

  223. and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. So

  224. the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, have patience with me,

  225. and I will pay you everything. And out of pity for him, the

  226. master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. But when that

  227. same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him

  228. a hundred denari and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying,

  229. pay what you owe, and that's exactly what we do after we've stepped into

  230. Jesus, been totally forgive, and then want our brother to pay. Pay

  231. what you owe. So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him,

  232. have patience with me, and I will pay you. He refused and went

  233. and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. When his fellow

  234. servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went

  235. and reported to their master all that had taken place. Then his master summoned

  236. him and said to him, you, wicked servant, I forgave you all

  237. that debt because you pleaded with me, and should not you have had mercy

  238. on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you, And in anger,

  239. his master delivered him to the jailers until he should pay all his debt.

  240. Let me tell you something, it's not easy to become demonized, but there

  241. are certain ways that make it really easy. You go ahead and be justified

  242. giveness and bitterness, and I can guarantee you you will have demonic influence come

  243. into your life, and if you keep holding on to it, eventually it

  244. will become familiar in working to your soul, and you won't know what's your

  245. voice and what's it and you will stay stuck in that place until you forgive,

  246. which is releasing the debt. Now, who wants to stay ticked for

  247. a long time? Here's what we have to remember, you're born into a

  248. battlefield and the enemy doesn't care what you think. The enemy is a legalist

  249. and he will take every possible right that he can. Y'all excited? This

  250. is awesome? Come on, hang in there. It gets better. We

  251. got to take an account of the debt. The issue when I talked about

  252. y'all, when you thought you forgave someone and then all of a sudden you're

  253. around them and you're like, oh Lord, can I just smack them?

  254. Once you realize there's easy, No, you realize that there's unforgiveness there.

  255. Why because you may have been taught to blanket your forgiveness rather than take an

  256. account of the debt. You may have been taught just to do a nice,

  257. fluffy prayer of forgiveness over everything they did. And you genuinely probably forgave

  258. them of some of those things. But if you had ten trespasses with them

  259. that your heart was holding, and you forgave eight of them, guess what

  260. you got two trespasses you never released. And that's why every time you get

  261. around that person, your heart condemns you, or you feel condemned like h

  262. because you didn't totally forgive. Don't blanket your forgiveness when you need to deal

  263. with forgiveness for someone, and get alone with the Lord and say, Lord,

  264. help me process. Come into this Lord. I want to know everything

  265. I'm holding against them, and when I'm doing prayer ministry with people, and

  266. I know there's a stronghold, which, by the way, the very found

  267. I don't give a flip what inter healing process you're doing, what name you've

  268. put on it. It's either biblical or unbiblical. It's that simple. If

  269. it's biblical, then repentance and forgiveness are at the very foundation of it,

  270. period foundational. You cannot have inner healing without repentance and forgiveness at the core.

  271. It's like applying the blood on both sides of the doorpost repentance forgiveness.

  272. It's a beautiful picture with the passover. No where was I I just sidetracked

  273. right before that? Hun, You're always paying attention to what I say?

  274. What did I just say right before that? Were you not in my head?

  275. Thinking? So? So I will take yes, thank you. So

  276. I will get a notepad and I will tell whoever it is. Hey,

  277. here's a notepad, here's a pen. I want you to write down every

  278. single person that you know you have something against in your life. And I

  279. want you to take your time, and I want you to take an account

  280. of the debt, and then I want you to forgive every one of those

  281. items. And I want you to ask the Lord if he wants to say

  282. anything on each of those debts that you're releasing. My buddy Dan Gerroy,

  283. early on when I was forgiving, he would always have pencils. Anybody knew

  284. Dangerroy, Yeah, he would always have pencils. I may have broke about

  285. ten cases of those things after about two years, but I got through it.

  286. And just as a closure, when I forgave, i'd break that pencil

  287. and lots of pencils, lots of pencils. But you take an account and

  288. you fully forgive from your heart. But one of the there's many reasons why

  289. we don't forgive. We believe the lie that our unforgiveness were justified. They

  290. don't deserve to be forgiven, well neither do you? Oh? True,

  291. they deserve to be punished. Well, so did you Jesus handled that if

  292. I forgive, they're only going to do it again. How many times have

  293. you done something again after you ask for forgiveness. How many times did I

  294. do something? Not? Many? Right? How about this? My unforgiveness

  295. protects me from further pain. If I hold my debt like a shield,

  296. I protect my heart from rejection rather than recognizing. If I wasn't looking to

  297. you for identity, you couldn't reject me. What is it? I ask

  298. people, what's your unforgiveness doing for you? Well? Nothing? Well that's

  299. a lie. If it was doing nothing, you'd forgive right. Think about

  300. your thinking right now, every one of you in this room. If there's

  301. someone you need to forgive, I want you to think about why you've not

  302. forgiven yet. I didn't say it was easy. I'm sure being beaten beyond

  303. recognition wasn't easy either. See he is the trump card, no pun intended.

  304. He is the ultimate trump card. Because any excuse we try to come

  305. up with, and we look at Calvary, you can tell Jesus your blood

  306. you spilt for him, isn't it isn't good enough? So I tell everyone

  307. bleve's that baby lord. I tell everyone forgive to the degree you want to

  308. be forgiven. Colossians three thirteen says bearing with one another and if one has

  309. a complaint against another. Forgiving each other. As the Lord has forgiven you,

  310. so you also must forgive. Colossians three thirteen Tewod Corinthians two ten says

  311. this anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive. This is Paul. Indeed,

  312. what I've forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your

  313. in the presence of Christ now here. I love this. This is this

  314. is a scripture that we need to remember in this moment. Luke six forty

  315. two, how can you say to your brother brother, let me take out

  316. the spec that's in your eye when you yourself do not see the log that's

  317. in your own eye? You hypocrite. Do you know what hypocrite means,

  318. you Hollywood actor? Hypocrite means to act literally, So think about the actors

  319. in Hollywood. Think about a really bad one too, you know, lousy

  320. like B film or something that's that's like you hypocrite. First, take the

  321. log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take

  322. out the spec that's in your brother's eye. See, it doesn't say we're

  323. not to hold each other accountable. It doesn't say we're not to judge righteously,

  324. which we are, and it says, confess your sends one to another,

  325. pray for one another, that you might be what healed. But it's

  326. an issue when I'm ignoring the beam in my eye and I'm more concerned about

  327. the speck in your eye. Mercy proceeds forgiveness. I might say this.

  328. One of the greatest clues if you've actually forgiven someone is the compassion of the

  329. Lord fills your heart for that person. It's hard to have compassion for someone

  330. and want to strangle them at the same time. Why do I feel like

  331. some of you all have been there. It's like I can hear somebody go,

  332. well, I've done that. The next day, Moses said to the

  333. people, you've sinned a great sin, and now I will go up to

  334. the Lord. Perhaps I can make atonement for your sin. So Moses returned

  335. to the Lord and said, Alas, this people has sinned a great sin.

  336. They've made for themselves gods of gold. But now if you forgive their

  337. sin, but if not, please blot me out of your book that you've

  338. written. Moses is amazing. On one moment, He's like, Lord,

  339. kill me now, I can't handle all these people. Take me out.

  340. He did, say that kill me. There's yeah, I'm these stiff necked

  341. people. And then the next moment he's like, Lord, have mercy on

  342. them. If you don't have mercy on them, blot me out of your

  343. book of life, which is literally just a beautiful picture of intercession and a

  344. prophet filling in the gap interceding. Please, he says, please blot me

  345. out of your book that you've written. But the Lord said to Moses,

  346. whoever sin against me, I will bought out of my book James two thirteen.

  347. For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy, Mercy

  348. triumphs over judgment. I gotta land this thing. I got eleven minutes.

  349. Hey, it's eleven. Where are you prophetic people? Eleven? Oh it's

  350. ten, ten, eleven eleven. Forgiving yourself one thing. One of the

  351. one of the biggest giants for people that have gone through abuse, whether physical

  352. abuse, sexual abuse, what have you, is false responsibility because they have

  353. been in secular terms, psychology terms, they have been gas lit to such

  354. a degree that they think everything is their responsibility, and through deception, they

  355. take on the respect of their life onto them to such a degree that they

  356. think everything is their fault. Now I want to help y'all. If gaslighting

  357. narcissist. Anybody heard the term narcissist, let me help you with that.

  358. If if someone is a full blown narcissist, they have a Jezebel spirit.

  359. It's that simple. That's what that spirit looks like to the world. So

  360. the issue of forgiving yourself is so many times we will misplace the sins of

  361. others, and there's so many times we ourselves are the last ones to forgive

  362. ourselves. And I shared this briefly first service, but I remember I remember

  363. feeling totally responsible for the molestation I went through as a child, believing that

  364. it was my fault, that somehow I should have been able to protect myself.

  365. And it makes no logical sense if you're year four or five years old

  366. and there's an adult who's doing the molestation, how could you ever blame yourself?

  367. But through all of the demonic stuff, in the manipulation and just gaslighting

  368. and all of that, you end up with a whole bunch of stinking thinking.

  369. And I remember it was probably two thousand and two we were in marriage

  370. counseling. Lisa needed to tune up, so I agreed to go and just

  371. joking, Sean's like, really, dude, you did that again. And

  372. no, we were marriage counseling, and because I told Lisa, and I

  373. think I've shared this so I won't belabor it. But I told Lisa's like,

  374. look, Hun, I didn't call you hunt at the time. Girlfriend.

  375. I said, look, my parents divorced. They split up when my

  376. mom was pregnant with me. I was molested as a kid, But don't

  377. worry, none of that affected me. That that is in what you call

  378. a guardian lie in denial, which we all have our PhD. In denying

  379. suppress. We call it spirituality. And I'll never forget the counselor the moment

  380. Lisa said the word molestation. Daryl Pitts, he's passed away now, but

  381. he was the head counselor for Jerry Folwell's church, and he like, all

  382. of a sudden, it's like Lisa disappeared in the room and he's only focused

  383. on me, Like what is going on here? I'm not the problem,

  384. And all of a sudden, next thing you know, I'm in I'm in

  385. counseling by myself, without my wife, and he's asked me all these uncomfortable

  386. questions. I didn't even like to say the word molestation. I was like,

  387. yeah, my uncle messed with me. That's how disassociated I was from

  388. the pain false responsibility. I can't ever take responsibility or the pain in my

  389. heart if I think it's all my fault. If I don't transfer the responsibility

  390. of what happened to me back on the one that did it, I can't

  391. ever forgive them. And now I'm stuck in a cycle of unforgiveness that I

  392. can't get out because I took the bait of Satan. Are you with me?

  393. It doesn't have to be my story. It doesn't have to be what

  394. I went through. It could be whatever something that happened to you, whether

  395. it was in business, the marketplace, relationship, marriage, whatever it is

  396. fill in the blank. False responsibility keeps people ensnared in many many ways.

  397. And I remember Daryl said, well, well, how big were you when

  398. this started happening. I don't know. I mean, I'm really tall now,

  399. so it's hard to judge. And so I was like, I don't

  400. know, maybe you know, maybe a foot shorter, you know, And

  401. he goes, well, don't you think it's time that you take the responsibility

  402. off that little boy and put it onto the one that it belongs. And

  403. this was around two thousand and two, and this was just regular counseling.

  404. This wasn't like, you know, interhealing and deliverance. And I was extremely

  405. Baptist, so I thought that was all a bunch of weird stuff and I

  406. broke. The other thing is when I chose to actually call what happened to

  407. me what it was, rather than to deny my heart to create space from

  408. the pain. Listen, I don't care what you've gone through. You have

  409. to take responsibility for your heart. What you've gone through, you've got to

  410. take response ability for it. Because it's so easy to fall into a victim

  411. spirit when you've been horribly abused. But I promise you this, if you

  412. hold on to a victim spirit as your identity, you'll never get free because

  413. a victim spirit never takes responsibility, and you got to take responsibility. I'm

  414. not saying for their sin. You take their sin and put it on them

  415. and forgive them. Y'all with me, Listen. Forgiveness is foundational, and

  416. we have shown over the recent years, at least in the American Church,

  417. that we're not really good at this thing called forgiveness, which is I think

  418. it grieves the Lord tremendously. I'm not saying don't have healthy boundaries. You

  419. know, if you lost a family member de al Kaido, You're probably not

  420. going to bring them to the dinner table. I'm not saying become a doormat.

  421. You can forgive. It doesn't forgiveness, doesn't restore, doesn't create reconciliation.

  422. That's a separate step. And you got to have health boundaries. But

  423. make sure the motives are correct, all right, man, I go,

  424. yeah, yeah, okay. So but with this issue of forgiving yourself,

  425. self hatred is typically a root many times of autoimmune issues, and it manifests

  426. with your with your physical body rejecting itself. And so if you're struggling with

  427. autoimmune issues this morning, I'm not guaranteeing it self hatred. But what I'm

  428. saying is ask the Lord to show you if there is any self bitterness comes

  429. in when unforgiveness towards yourself is not dealt with. Self rejection is the end

  430. result of not dealing with unforgiveness towards yourself. Let me tell you something.

  431. Self hatred is ugly. I mean ugly. One of the most physically brutal

  432. manifestations I've seen in nineteen years of doing deliverance was an end of visual that

  433. had a huge self hatred spirit on them. They literally began to punch themselves

  434. in the face and all over their body. And this was some years ago.

  435. And I remember, you know, I had to put my coffee down

  436. because I usually have coffee when I'm doing ministry, and and I literally just

  437. went over and I baar hugged this person and I said, I bind you

  438. in the name of Jesus, and I started rebuking the self hatred and we

  439. went to the ground. It was actually, I like warfare, Like I'm

  440. a man, so I'm like, when when it gets on like that,

  441. my I'm like, whoa, I get pumped. But this person got completely

  442. free. But I just want to say that it's self hatred is what is

  443. needed before a spirit of suicide can have its way. Hatred towards others opens

  444. you up to a spirit of murder. Jesus said, if you have hatred

  445. in your heart, you've already committed murder. So self hatred does the opposite.

  446. Y'all with me, So let me finish with this Ephesians four thirty two.

  447. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God

  448. in Christ forgave you. An unforgiving heart is a judging heart. If you

  449. find yourself always judging the snot out of everybody, you may want to look

  450. and see if there's unforgiveness. Therefore, you have no excuse, o man,

  451. every one of you who judges, for in passing judgment on another,

  452. you condemn yourself because you, the judge, practiced the very same things Romans

  453. two to one. And now let me end with this forgiving God. Before

  454. you say heresy, let me expound. God doesn't need our forgiveness, but

  455. many times we're holding debt against him because of the lies we believe. This

  456. goes back to false responsibility. How do you know when you're holding God responsible

  457. for somebody else's sin, it goes like this, why did he let this

  458. happen? Been there? Anybody been there? Why did he let this happen?

  459. As if he was the author of sin and he just violateds Listen,

  460. if you're a Calvinist an oarminiist, it doesn't matter. There are things that

  461. happen when it comes to sin that God had nothing to do with. He

  462. wasn't the author of it. The enemy came to steal, kill, and

  463. destroy, but God came to give life and give it more abundantly. Those

  464. are your two categories. When you steal, steel, kill, destroy,

  465. that's the hand of the evil one. He comes in brings deception, gets

  466. you to blame God for his actions, almost like false worship, because when

  467. we start blaming God for the enemy's hand, it's like worship to him.

  468. I'm gonna finish with this two things James one, thirteen to seventeen. Let

  469. no one say when he's tempted, I'm being tempted by God. For God

  470. cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each

  471. person is tempted when he's lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire,

  472. when it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin when it's

  473. fully grown, brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers,

  474. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father

  475. of Lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

  476. I'll never forget this. Some years ago, maybe five six years ago,

  477. Becky Bowen. You all know Becky, right, some of y'all know Becky

  478. a little bit, just a smidge. Becky shows up one morning that she

  479. often does and says, I know what your problem is. I'm like,

  480. huh, yeah, I know what your problem is. I go, what

  481. do you mean. She goes, You're mad at God? I said,

  482. no, I'm not. Uh, yes you are. I'm like, Becky,

  483. no, seriously, I like, I don't feel anything. I promise

  484. I'm not mad at him. Yes you are. If you all know Becky,

  485. you know why she didn't batt off the gas. And I'm like,

  486. no, I am not mad at God. But now I'm getting irritated with

  487. you because you keep telling me I'm angry with God. And and she goes,

  488. no, the Lord told me you're still mad at God. There's still

  489. a part of you blaming him for what happened to you when you were little.

  490. I go, no, I don't think so. So we're sitting in

  491. the office actually I think it's Anthony's Anthony's office. Now we're sitting in there.

  492. Who's a prayer ministry room at the time. So I'm like, Ward,

  493. if I'm if there's any part of me that's still angry with you.

  494. I don't think it is, but I'm like, I don't want to keep

  495. it, and and we keep talking, keep processing, and all of a

  496. sudden, a rumble from the basement I think it came from my pinky toe

  497. and began to work its way up, and all of a sudden I could

  498. feel this buried anger I had, and all of a sudden my heart had

  499. permission to have a voice in that place, and it came up, and

  500. I took my fist. I shocked myself and I I was sitting on the

  501. couch, and I even shocked Becky a little bit because I made a fist.

  502. Don't worry, I didn't hit her. And I swunk forward and I

  503. go with him. Why on the she ole which fill in the blank did

  504. he let it happen? And I instantly realized I was still angry, and

  505. I broke right in that moment and started crying. And I was like,

  506. Lord, forgive me for still holding you responsible for his actions. And it

  507. was done. You can lie to yourself, you can intellectually lie to yourself,

  508. but your body won't lie. Why will your body not lie? Because

  509. what you really believe in your heart is what you're going to manifest as a

  510. man, thinketh so is he Proverbs. It's what you believe guard your heart

  511. for. Out of it flow the issues of life. We light our cells

  512. better than anybody else on planet Earth. Just because you say, oh,

  513. I don't feel anything, well, guess what. I had my guardian lie

  514. for years and years and years until it failed. I went through all those

  515. things, but it didn't affect me liar pants on fire. It absolutely affected

  516. me. Could have absolutely destroyed my life. Had the Lord not had mercy

  517. on me to be able to deal with all my stuff when I did,

  518. then I would I would have probably ended up being a statistic if I'd gone

  519. back, gone back into ministry before I got healed up. So what does

  520. our posture need to be in the season. We need to be praying for

  521. the body of Christ. We need to have humility, We need to mourn

  522. over the things that are being exposed. Y'all. I don't think I said

  523. to this service, but there are things. Did I say there are things

  524. that should disqualify you from ministry? Yeah, it's true, But I want

  525. to encourage you in this hour. Don't get jaded with Jesus. Don't get

  526. jaded with his kingdom because he's coming back for his bride. Stop looking at

  527. each other as enemies. Start looking at each other as family. And even

  528. if you think the person next to you is like crazy Eddie from Christmas Vacation,

  529. cousin Eddie, I mean, you still gotta love cousin Eddie, even

  530. if he's out there with the RV fill in the street with the All right,

  531. let's stand if they can get the prayer team to come forward, Wayne,

  532. if you want to get some keys for me, sir? Did that

  533. help anybody? Did that help with the issue of forgiveness? Good? All

  534. right? So, Father, I thank you that he who began a good

  535. work will complete it. Lord. I pray that we would walk humbly with

  536. you, that we would love mercy, that we would do justice, Lord,

  537. and we just lift up all the man Lord, all the stuff that's

  538. been exposed over the last few months. Lord, we just lift up the

  539. body of Christ in Dallas to you, Lord, Kansas, California, Lord,

  540. and all over the earth for that matter. And I pray Father,

  541. that we would keep our eyes on the prize, Lord, You're the prize,

  542. that we would gauge success, that we would gauge success Lord. By

  543. what you gauge success Lord, that souls would be so thank you for listening.

  544. For more messages and other resources, please subscribe to this podcast. We're

  545. going to our website at www dot Cross Kingdom dot org