God lives and works today, but maybe it's
hard for us to believe that, especially when
we have to deal with a difficult person
at home or at work.
What should we do if we simply can't
love or bear a certain person?
Listen to today's meditation by Vassalia Schlenk called
No Room for Bitterness.
There were years in my life when I
sensed how difficult it was for me to
love, especially when I was being unjustly treated.
The fact that I couldn't respond in love
bothered me very much.
However, it was God's great grace that sent
a person into my life who was almost
an unbearable burden for me, for this caused
the plea for love to become the plea
of my life.
And I wrote in my diary, Lord, give
me love, the love which is not irritable
or resentful, which bears all things, believes all
things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Because of my nature, it was many years
before God could actually give me his love.
He knew that he must permit these arrows
to strike against the hard spot in my
heart until it was completely riddled with holes.
Then, contrition and repentance over my inability to
forgive and love would be able to find
room in my heart.
And then God would be able to grant
me his love.
My old nature writhed beneath his chastening blows,
but the blood of the Lamb, which I
learned to call upon more and more, proved
to be stronger.
I am redeemed.
To love you set me free.
I am redeemed.
You won the fight for me.
Redeemed from heartless envy, pride, and self-display.
The foes of love must flee now far
away.
I am redeemed.
Yes, the blood of Jesus freed me more
and more from my hardness of heart and
gave me compassion for the sins of others.
In this way, God taught me to go
the way of the Lamb, no longer justifying
myself, but rather enduring and bearing everything, including
unjust reproaches.
And I found that this alone is the
way to Jesus.
After many years in the school of God,
I can now testify that when we are
totally humiliated by our inability to love and
our self-righteousness is broken, Jesus will open
up to us his righteousness.
Then we will truly be in Christ and
he in us.
In this way, Jesus' words in John 17
verse 26 will be fulfilled.
I made known to them your name, and
I will make it known that the love
with which you have loved me may be
in them, and I in them.
Lord, hear my prayer, my earnest cry, my
plea, that you may soon your image see
in me.
Give me your love, Lord, love comes from
you alone.
O, heaven, save me, would make me all
your own.
Lord, love like this give me.