Tony Evans on Unforgiveness

From the book, Detours by Tony Evans:

"A lot of us are failing to reach our destination because we are still feeling loaded down by the pain of the past. The weight of yesterday continues to weigh us down today, keeping us from moving freely into tomorrow. Nothing--and I mean nothing--will hinder you arriving at your destiny like this thing called unforgiveness. Unforgiveness includes holding on to past pain, past hurts, past grudges--the weightiness of regret, remorse, and revenge. Unforgiveness is that one thing above all else that will block God's movement in your life taking you from where you are to where you are supposed to go." Dr. Tony Evans

Never Too Late With God

It may be too late with people, but never with God. 

Forgiveness is a funny thing with humans, but a very objective, thorough and complete thing with God.

So as we make peace, through Christ, with our demons, and turn over a new leaf in our process of regeneration, and begin once again to venture out amongst the people of our past as the healed, redeemed-from-our-nemeses-and-neuroses people that we are—“it," us—we may not be welcomed back. 

Now it is us who may be on the receiving end of the very same nemeses and neuroses that once drove our attitudes and actions. Or, other people may seek to indulge their own form of revenge or indifference to us.

Either way, the progress we’ve made with Christ is not trusted by them, or perhaps not even noticed (mainly because many who don’t know Christ don’t understand sin—mine or their own, and in fact even deny there is such a thing); or our growth and improved mental and emotional state may be despised. It might be resented because it didn’t come sooner, or because we were flawed to begin with. 

And when everyone, including us, takes everything personal, conflict and hurt feelings are seeded, bloom and become entrenched. It’s just a matter of whose court the ball of offense is now in. 

It is this very taking of things personal that Christ is and has been working to eradicate in my life, and the main reason I can, after 18 years of being born again in Him, indeed begin afresh now, free of much of the social and familial anxiety that has haunted and strangled me in the past. 

The blessing is that now when I see these same strangleholds in others, I don’t take it personally because these folks are simply where I once was. 

I have only compassion for them and can, through Christ, give them their space to lick their wounds, which, without Christ in their lives, will never fully heal. And even with Christ, can take a very long time to heal. 

My response is to pray that they, too, find Christ and freedom in Him from their priority of harboring offense. 

And that I will welcome them back when and if they ever want to be.

Copyright Barb Harwood

The Source of Evil and "Us Vs. Them"

A young person in my life is investigating the underlying cause of the “Us vs. Them” mentality. Essentially, this person says they would like to know where evil comes from, or why people “act the way they do.”

And so this letter, although addressed to them, is addressed to all of us.

Dear young person,

The last few months, you have raised the question of why “people act the way they do” and asked what is the source of the “us versus them” mentality.

As you know, I do not have sociological, psychiatric, ethnological, etymological, or behavioral science degrees to lend worldly “expertise” to what I say, so I will merely go with what I know to be true from having lived with myself for the last 57 years, and which Scripture confirms.

“What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel.” James 4:1-2

Notice the above answer to “what is the source of quarrels and conflicts”: 

Is not the source you…..

Our “pleasures” is that which pleases us, and we are not talking about food or places to visit here. Our true pleasure is that which brings satisfaction internally, and motivates what we think, say and do. 

So although an adventurous vacation can make us happy, that happiness may linger only for a time and then fade upon our return. But the deeper pleasure of posting pictures on facebook or talking about our trip for years afterwards—that is the internal pleasure we really seek—the “war waging in our members” of heart, mind and physical embodiment—the members of our psyche that incorporate "street cred," making an appearance; identity. 

I posit that in everything: career, marriage, family, neighborhood; what underlies the "us versus them" mentality is the ensuing evil we practice to attain that pleasure, whether or not we indeed obtain it, which I identify here as affirmation. 

Even the most confident person craves it. 

And when you begin to listen, and observe, to the world around you: from those who talk way too loud in a cafe, to those who interrupt, to those who have their own story to tell before you even finish yours, to fancy cars and cute clothes and beautiful works of art: the deepest pleasure of the human soul is the receiving of affirmation from another.

And it is what ironically also drives wedges between us and is the impetus of so much evil.

This is further clarified in Galatians:

“Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these,” Galatians 5:19-21a

So what has affirmation got to do with the above? 

We go about satiating our need for affirmation, or retaliating for not getting it when we think we deserve it, by gut-human reaction as listed in the above verse. We may even “know” it is “wrong” to be jealous, or envious. But when we are assuaging a lack of affirmation, logic goes right out the window, and we instead do whatever we can to “please the members that wage war within us.” 

And the problem with the need for human affirmation, either from others or from within ourselves, is that it is never enough, and we are sieves through which it comes and then quickly goes, leaving us craving yet more. 

It is this constant and incessant drive for affirmation that often pits one against another. 

So, as I said earlier, if we say we really want to get to the bottom of evil, and “us versus them,” then we have to start with ourselves, and we have to be brutally honest with ourselves, about ourselves. 

And so, I will go first: 

Before I found affirmation in Christ, my go-to's for affirmation were to talk over people; one-up and interrupt their stories; and gossip and criticize individuals and entire people groups in an attempt to convince myself of my superiority over them. 

Again, all this to feed myself heavy doses of affirmation. 

I would flatter in order to get on someone’s good side, or to impress them with my equally intelligent like-mindedness. So although I was lavishing accolades upon them, I was sniffing for a return complement and ordination into their status.

I would adopt the cool trends of the day, then resent the rest of the world when the rest of the world caught on and I was no longer uniquely affirmed by my style and my being “in the know.” 

See, only I was entitled to be cool; to be cutting edge; to be “with it.” 

Because then I could be superior to the “clueless” and “backward.” 

You can imagine how these various motivations for affirmation caused huge inner distress, social exhaustion and perpetual anxiety, all part of my fending off a fear of being “less than.” 

I was the farthest a person could be from “inner peace,” which led, not surprisingly, to dissension and animosity with everyone else: even people I liked. Because life became a perpetual competition. 

This need for affirmation also robbed me of enjoyment in the jobs I had. 

I was always listening in, noticing and ultimately resenting the compliments paid to co-workers. Any time someone else was praised, I felt inwardly threatened. Oftentimes this happened even if I did receive a complement, because I wanted to be the only one being lifted up and singled out for stellar competency and congeniality. 

This is the breeding ground for Schadenfreude: that inner secret delight that bubbles up in us when we see someone fail, or “get what they deserve.” 

This happens in families as well: sibling rivalry, the belief that a parent loves and favors one child over the others, the spreading of gossip and being a critical busy-body—all of it comes from an insatiable obsession with being affirmed. 

“For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another” Galatians 5:13-15.

And so affirmation, first and foremost, is tied to inner peace, and I posit that affirmation and inner peace cannot come from within, because of the state of the “within” that I have just described. 

It goes back to the proverbial question I have asked many times on this blog: “How can I help me if I am the problem?” 

How can I drum up and manufacture my own affirmation? 

Clearly my track record is that I cannot, even though I read every zen and New Age book on “liking myself.” We can tell ourself this until we are blue in the face (I should know), but look around: clearly the “Just like yourself” mantra is wearing thin and not doing much to bring “peace on earth;” internally among individuals or externally among communities and nations.

So, the first part of my answer to the question of “why do people act the way they do” and what underlies the “us versus them” mentality is that individuals are not at peace with themselves, so they cannot be at peace inwardly with others. 

We can fake being at peace with people face to face, but if we lack inner peace inwardly (and I argue this comes from the peace of having our need for affirmation satiated), we will lack an inner peace towards others that will continue to undermine unity and cooperation.

The second part of my answer is to deal with the “lust” mentioned in James 4. 

“You lust and do not have.” 

Lust here is a mindset, not a sexual obsession.

We “murder” or kill whatever comes between us and what we want—what we lust after. 

This gets back again, I believe, to our constant and driving need for affirmation. 

So if we “lust” after affirmation in our job, and we understand affirmation to mean high payment and respect for our talents, but we we don’t get high pay and respect, then we “kill” others (by our attitude towards them), who do make a lot of money and seem to garner all the respect in society. 

So we would be hard pressed, for example, to say we like a CEO of a major corporation. We would be hard pressed to say we respect them. We would have no problem voicing derision towards them in our heads and with our peers. 

We would have no problem lambasting race car drivers who rake in the cash, while we slave away, working twice as hard in a job that doesn’t damage the eco-system. 

Inwardly, we are assuaged by this animosity; by our very own “us versus them” mentality. 

Here we come to the uncomfortable realization that we cannot exclude ourselves from being a shareholder of evil, proven in the very vendettas we harbor within ourselves. 

I know there is a huge push to blame religion, specifically, Christianity, for all of the evil in the world, even going so far as to accuse evil of being a religious social construct that non-Christians can now use to shame and blame Christians.

The only problem with this “scholarly” counter-cultural “Let’s turn Christianity over on its head so as to reveal it’s true colors!” is that it doesn’t eradicate evil or the “us versus them” mentality. 

Many have jettisoned Christianity, and yet war persists. 

Secular countries are in protest. 

Tribal groups war with other tribal groups. 

People who never set foot in a church, much less have any inkling of “traditional Christianity,” are rude and cheat, curse others and murder. 

As long as people roam the earth, people will be the source of evil and “us versus them.”

As much as I wish it were all an invention by some cantankerous old bishops and reformation leaders, I know "us versus them" isn’t made up, and cannot be eradicated by believing so.

So to answer your question, I say look to yourself, as I had to look to myself to truly understand and perceive exactly where evil and “us versus them” begins. 

It begins in me. And it begins in you. 

“I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good.” Romans 7:21

copyright Barb Harwood

Women's Liberation vs. Women's Rights

It was only when I became a Christian that I slowly began to see not only the Godly purpose and high calling in parenting and marriage, but the beauty and sense of teamwork, bonding and belonging God’s teaching on the family instilled—if only we let it!

Previous to becoming a Christian in Christ, I had kicked against the goads of being wife to my husband, and mother to my kids, due to an unsettling sense of having fallen short, even though they loved me and I dearly loved them. 

I was simply imbued with an “ought” that I allowed to dictate my worth; an “ought” that I was not living up to because I had chosen to be at home with my kids.

This “ought” was the brainchild of the cultural and contextual worldview into which I had been born, raised and encouraged: the Women’s Liberation Movement.

This movement of “liberating” women from the enemy—men and childrearing, was not the same, I realized years later, as Women’s Rights. I didn’t know to make that distinction back then, because the distinction, in my world anyway, was never made: it wasn’t made in my home, public education or university experience. 

Therefore, all of the progress in procuring the legal rights that women require to be equal with men got mixed up with the “Women’s Lib” movement. So if a person was not on board with every tenet of Women’s Lib, they were accused of being "male chauvinists,” or “against” women’s rights, or—for women specifically—looked down upon as “doormats.”

But the Women’s Lib movement is a far cry from Women’s Rights. 

Because one of the rights a woman has, and “ought” to be able to have, is that of being a mom and wife, and to enjoy and take satisfaction in the living out of that choice—something the Women’s Lib movement, in my lifetime, attempted to (and succeeded) in taking away from me, if only for a short time. 

The Women’s Lib movement took it upon themselves to declare to young girls and women everywhere: 

“You do not have a right to want to ‘just’ be a mom and wife. And you certainly have no right to actually take pleasure in and receive a sense of accomplishment in the living out of that choice.”

The liberation movement adopted and denigrated the moniker “housewife” to shame any female who so chose that very calling: a mom and wife who does not “work” outside the home.

Thus, anything “traditionally” female was frowned upon: “staying home” with the kids; sewing one’s own clothes, cooking—even keeping a clean, organized living abode was deemed to be “below” any woman worth her salt. 

To live this way was not only a "drudgery," but an insult and let-down to women everywhere.

As I grew older, it started to seem to me that the “Women’s Movement,” as it was now starting to be called, simply had a vendetta against men.

Again, I can’t emphasize enough the separating of women’s rights from women’s liberation. All women benefit when they gain rights, but many women lose and are disadvantaged when they buy into “liberation.”

Case in point:

Take the situation today where women find themselves just as much, if not more, as sexual objects as ever before. We can thank the Women’s Lib movement for this lack of progress—even regression—for telling women that birth control would liberate them sexually and they could now have sex before and outside of marriage, with as many partners as they wish. They could now be equal to men in this regard. 

Hmmm, funny how it is still primarily the woman who is sexualized and preyed upon by men. In the “sexual revolution,” the woman is still the loser. 

A woman liberated has been given the go-ahead—under the guise of equality—to give sex away, with very non-liberating consequences: unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases, broken hearts and physical violation by men who used them, and the very objectification that the Women’s Lib movement claimed to be against. 

This same promiscuous autonomy leads to the enabling thinking that justifies sexual affairs outside of marriage as well, leading to divorce and broken homes.

Ironic how the Women’s Movement remains silent on this, except to continue to blame men, redirecting the fallout of what is largely the women’s liberation movement’s own doing.

A woman with sexual rights, on the other hand, would not give sex away, especially outside of marriage. 

The Women’s Liberation movement, I believe, has set back the progress women have made through the gaining of rights, and will continue to impede progress as long as we confuse liberation with rights.

Women’s Liberation and Women’s Rights will always be at odds with each other, because in the former, someone has to lose, whereas in the latter, both women and men win. 

As long as women’s rights is muddled by liberation, women everywhere will be undermined.

More posts yet to come on this...

Copyright Barb Harwood

Such a Simple Declaration

“Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come forth from God and was going back to God, got up from supper, and laid aside His garments; and taking a towel, He girded Himself.

Then He poured water into the basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded. So He came to Simon Peter. He (Simon Peter) said to Him, ‘Lord, do You wash my feet?’

Jesus answered and said to him, ‘What I do you do not realize now, but you will realize hereafter.’

Peter said to Him, ‘Never shall You wash my feet!’ 

Jesus answered him, ‘If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me’” (John 13:3-8).

There it is: 

“If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.”

Every liberal theology, secular humanist argument, and not wanting to "hurt the feelings of those who believe differently," is an independent protest against the Biblical Christ; a push-back that pronounces, 

“No, never” to Jesus. 

“Never will I let Him in. Never will I embarrass myself. Never will I accept that there is anything even remotely close to “sin” in this world, much less in me! Never will Christ wash my feet, or any part of me. I will have nothing to do with Him.” 

Even those who appear, in word and deed, to have given ascent to Christ, in reality have not if they have eschewed Christ’s washing them in His blood, shed on the Cross. 

“Not everyone who says to Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles? And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS’” (Matthew 7:21-23).

What is the will of the Father that Jesus speaks of in the above?

“This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:39-40).

Many people pass through life without ever properly considering who God is, much less who Jesus is. They often misleadingly think they believe in Jesus, when in reality what they have done is merely consented to His name only (Romans 1:21). 

This often comes about through adopting the church (not Christ) of their youth, or the denomination of their spouse or family. Whether they attend a corporate church or not, they agree with the idea of God or Jesus without knowing God or Jesus.

For others, belief in Christ can be nothing more than a religious ritual, observance of a holiday, or a rote personal or corporate prayer.

As a non-believer, I used to recite the Lord’s Prayer before every car ride, never actually hearing the words or knowing what they meant. The superstitious mouthing of the words is what I now call my “Lucky Rabbit’s Foot,” spoken so as to prevent an accident. 

I also thought that, since I had been baptized as a baby in the Presbyterian Church USA, that I was a bonafide religious person—never mind the fact that I had absolutely no clue as to what baptism meant. To me, I was a Presbyterian who accepted a nebulous God—casually throwing God into the mix of my sincere belief in the power of horoscopes, “praying” to the full moon and wishing on stars! 

When Peter said, “Never will You wash my feet!,” he was asserting a self-righteousness that raised himself above the Lord. When we do this, we become the stumbling block to knowing Christ (Acts 28:27), and to His knowing us (even though Christ knows everything about us: Psalm 139; John 1; 2:24; 4, Hebrews 4:13;). We put up our guard and Christ cannot “know” us in the context of us being in His family, as His very own brothers and sisters:

“While He was still speaking to the crowds, behold, His mother and brothers were standing outside, seeking to speak to Him. Someone said to Him, ‘Behold, Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside seeking to speak to You.’ But Jesus answered the one who was telling Him and said, ‘Who is My mother and who are My brothers?’ And stretching out His hand toward His disciples, He said, ‘Behold My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother” (Matthew 12:46-50).

Again we hear, “whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven.” The will of the Father is that we not only behold the Son, but believe the Son (John 6).

Peter, instantly discerning this at Jesus’ response, immediately surrenders to Christ:

“Simon Peter said to Him, ‘Lord, then wash not only my feet, but also my hands and my head’” (John 13:9).

At that moment, Simon Peter loved the Lord His God with all of his heart, all of his mind and all of his strength. And although certainly Christ already “knew’ Peter, now Christ can know Peter in the context of Peter now also knowing Christ.

Peter understood, finally, the truth, and that truth is what set Peter free from his own high regard for himself and from the intellectual reasoning and religious rubber-stamping that had kept him from being washed in the living Christ.






Copyright Barb Harwood

Not a Sparrow Falls Without God

Satan wants us to fear death (Hebrews 2:14-15). 

But God’s truth counters:

“Are not two sparrows sold for a cent? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So do not fear, you are more valuable than many sparrows” (Matthew 10:29-31).

“Are not five sparrows sold for two cents? Yet not one of them is forgotten before God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows” (Luke 12:6-7).

“But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, ‘DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory. O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:54-57).

“Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and He will come near to you…” (James 4:7-8a).

Satan wants us to fear death. 

But God is greater than Satan (1 John 4:4). 

And God’s perfect love in and through Jesus Christ keeps us in peace:

“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:18-19).

“Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives” (Hebrews 2: 14-15).

Therefore, Jesus implores us:

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30).

Blessed, indeed, are all “who die in the Lord” (Revelation 14:13).