The Gospel of Guided Grace

Updating Our Minds because the War is Over

No Surrender: My Thirty-Year War

By Hiroo Onoda, Translated by Charles Sanford Terry, Published 1999
Naval Institute Press

What affects our ability to receive and give out God’s grace today?

a.     Our imperfect family upbringing

b.     Our unhealed wounds of the past

c.      The distorted things that are taught us

Ephes. 3:14-19 (NLT) 

    When I think of the wisdom and scope of God's plan, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, [15] the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. [16] I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will give you mighty inner strength through his Holy Spirit. [17] And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God's marvelous love. [18] And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love really is. [19] May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God.

1.  Receive the fullness of God’s love, acceptance and healing into the innermost parts of our being, especially in the areas of our deepest hurts

Matthew 18:21-35 (NLT) 

    Then Peter came to him and asked, "Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?"

    [22] "No!" Jesus replied, "seventy times seven!

    [23] "For this reason, the Kingdom of Heaven can be compared to a king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him. [24] In the process, one of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of dollars. [25] He couldn't pay, so the king ordered that he, his wife, his children, and everything he had be sold to pay the debt. [26] But the man fell down before the king and begged him, 'Oh, sir, be patient with me, and I will pay it all.' [27] Then the king was filled with pity for him, and he released him and forgave his debt.

    [28] "But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars. He grabbed him by the throat and demanded instant payment. [29] His fellow servant fell down before him and begged for a little more time. 'Be patient and I will pay it,' he pleaded. [30] But his creditor wouldn't wait. He had the man arrested and jailed until the debt could be paid in full.

    [31] "When some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset. They went to the king and told him what had happened. [32] Then the king called in the man he had forgiven and said, 'You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. [33] Shouldn't you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?' [34] Then the angry king sent the man to prison until he had paid every penny.

    [35] "That's what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters in your heart."

Many years ago I was driven to the conclusion that the two major causes of most emotional problems among evangelical Christians are these: the failure to understand, receive, and live our God’s unconditional grace and forgiveness; and the failure to give out that unconditional love, forgiveness, and grace to other people. David Seamands

The unaccepted become the unaccepting.  The unforgiven become the unforgiving.  The ungraced become the ungracious. 

2.  Choose to forgive those who have consciously or unconsciously hurt you

1 Peter 5:5 (NIV) 

    …All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble."

3.  Actively seek continual repentance in order to find more freedom and victory is all areas of our lives

Romans 12:2 (NIV)

    Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.