Imitating Christ When You're Unforgiven - a new post by @ShelleyHendrix

"...(B)e imitators of God, as beloved children; 2and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma."

 Ephesians 5:1-2

One of the most difficult and painful experiences I've ever faced - and have had to learn to live with - is when I've wronged someone, acknowledged it to them, asked (begged!) for forgiveness and yet didn't receive it. Relationships can be so tricky, can't they? 

Some of the BEST teaching on forgiveness that I've ever heard comes from my mentors at TrueFaced who have taught me that repentance and forgiveness are not means of fixing my behavior, but grace gifts to help heal my relationships. I love that! But what happens when you've repented and yet haven't received forgiveness? What do you do when the offended one becomes an offender by refusing to forgive?

There's only one solution: offer forgiveness for their lack of forgiveness. For me, it has meant that I:

- choose to receive the forgiveness of my Heavenly Father regardless of whether the other person(s) forgives me or not;

- walk in freedom to live my life as I give the other person(s) space and grace to live theirs;

- acknowledge any continued hurts to God and intentionally pray for the person withholding forgiveness.

We, as children of God, can trust that we are beloved by God, and imitate our Savior who modeled perfectly for us what it looks like to love others who may not love us back. Most people are doing the best they can, so if they're withholding forgiveness, it's possible that it's because they don't yet understand the power and freedom forgiveness offers them. 

"Walk in love," my friends. 

Stop trying to balance Grace & Truth - A New Post by @ShelleyHendrix

And the Word (Christ) became flesh (human, incarnate) and tabernacled (fixed His tent of flesh, lived awhile) among us; and we [actually] saw His glory (His honor, His majesty), such glory as an only begotten son receives from his father, full of grace (favor, loving-kindness) and truth.

John 1:14 Amplified

I used to believe (and teach) that Grace and Truth needed to be balanced. I no longer believe this. 

In reality, I understand now that Grace and Truth are two sides of the same coin. You simply can't have one without a full and complete measure of the other.

"...(G)row in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ..."

I Peter 3:18 NIV

Grace & Truth 

• Truth Educates. 

Truth is the reality of what is. Truth informs as we spend time with the Author of Truth. Truth sets us free to the extent that we know and apply it to our lives.  (See John 8:31 - 32)

I've observed a sad dynamic in most Christian circles today: using the word "truth" in place of the word "Law." In other words, people are using the wrong definition for the word truth. 

• Grace Empowers.

Grace is the loving-kindness and favor of a God who doesn't lie. His grace rescues, redeems, and restores us as we embrace Jesus as our Savior. But Grace does not stop there! Grace remains in our lives and is what empowers us to grow up into maturity as followers of Jesus who have been given a brand new identity as children of God. 

• They never contradict each other. 

So beware of anyone who says, "Yes, there's grace, but the truth says..."

• They are never at odds with each other. 

You can't "pull the Grace Card" without the "Truth Card" because they are one and the same. 

There are a lot of well-meaning folks today who are trying so hard to motivate people to live for God while also encouraging people to trust God's grace. In doing so, what usually happens is that they speak out of both sides of their mouths. 

When We Try to "Balance" Grace & Truth, we only lose our balance

When people speak out of both sides of their mouths, listeners and learners get confused and usually wind up remaining stuck spiritually in the "Give Up/Try Hard Cycle." 

Jeff Van Vonderen, Tired of Trying to Measure Up

The speaker's intentions are usually good; but their motivations come from a misunderstanding of the Original Good News Jesus came to offer. They, too, tend to live in this Give Up/Try Hard Cycle themselves, so why wouldn't they continually use the same tactics in trying to get other people to shape up and fly right?

A short blog post doesn't permit me to carry this thought out in depth, so instead, I want to share some resources (in addition to the one above) that will help you on your own personal journey to better understanding and embracing God's grace in your own life so that you'll be better equipped to share it with others in your life.

• TrueFaced.com  (Many resources!)
• The Two Paths Talk by John Lynch (Free Video - Start here!)
• The Rest of The Gospel (Book)
• What God Wishes Christians Knew About Christianity (Book)

(Please consider using the Amazon Smile Link at the top of our blog page to order these book titles. Thank you!)

These are just a few trusted resources that are "Church 4 Chicks approved." :-) I do hope you'll take the time to research these resources for your benefit personally, but also for those within your sphere of influence. 

When we can stop using "truth" as a weapon to motivate change in behavior or "grace" as an excuse for our (or a loved one's) bad behavior, perhaps we'll get on with the business of living life to the full that Jesus promised was ours to experience. (See John 10:10) 

May God lavishly grant us both as we "grow in the Grace and Knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."

"Learning to Lead Others to the Room of Grace" by John Lynch @Truefaced

With Permission from the author, we are honored to pass along this post by John Lynch, Co-Leader of Truefaced 

*Original Post titled "The Note" can be found here.

Learning to Lead Others to the Room of Grace

“There are no together people, only those who dress better”, or as Bruce says, “…only those with brighter teeth.” Everyone needs grace all the time. Everyone needs to live out of their new identity all the time. No exceptions. There are no other types of people. But, there are different applications from hearing the message of grace, depending upon our backgrounds, exposure and upbringing.

When we speak on college campuses, after the messages, some students will always hang back, waiting until almost everyone else has left. They will then, unsuccessfully, try to get out  words, through deep sighs and sobbing. They have either never heard these truths or they are, for the first time, hearing life they way they’ve dreamt it could be and the opposite of what they’ve experienced.

But sometimes, students from really healthy, grace-filled homes encounter a message they’ve seen modeled most of their lives. Their responses are often quite different. One of those students wrote me a note last week:

“Mr. Lynch, (I like this kid)
I was raised in a healthy grace filled home. I have some of the most amazing parents on the planet, but I didn’t realize that until I began learning of the brokenness of the souls around me…I have been given the tools required to heal after getting hurt. During high-school, I knew several people who were “emotional.” I knew that there wasn’t anything wrong with emotion, but I knew that there was something wrong with their emotion. Then here at college, I learned that many of them were simply trying to play a broken instrument without the full understanding what the music sounds like from an instrument that is in complete working order.

This brings me to where I was sitting at lunch, listening to your discussion. The whole time I was thinking about my roommate. The guy doesn’t know who God is. He doesn’t know what a Christian is. He thinks he does. He was raised in the church. I don’t have to tell you what he thinks of the church because you are already aware of how ignorant and self-righteous we make ourselves look.

I want my roommate to know Christ. I want him to know who God is. With my background, it’s hard for me to articulate grace because it’s something that was instilled and not taught. Sitting and listening to you articulate grace has helped me a great deal. I have been able to relate grace to my roommate through lifestyle, but I haven’t felt capable of explaining it to him, and your talk has helped me to order some thoughts in my head.

…I’m not there yet. It’s going to take me a long time to deliver this message fully to my roommate. I’m not just going to sit down with him and explain it in an hour and then have him completely turn his life around during a whirlwind of emotion and epiphany. It’s a lesson he’s going to learn slowly and I have to “teach” it day-by-day. I would appreciate your prayer as I make my way through this last semester with him, before I graduate in May.

Thank you.”

We never get “past” needing to hear the message of grace and identity for ourselves. But sometimes, we get to see the message through the eyes of others and their desperate need for these truths. In fact, once experienced it’s the first response we often have: “Everyone I know needs this! I must begin to learn to not just bask in having experienced it, I must learn how to articulate this way of life.” Those are the words of someone entering a pretty incredible journey of watching God release the captives.

John Lynch

As many of you know, John Lynch's voice is one of the strongest and most trusted in my life when it comes to the message of the Gospel, Grace, Identity and Living Out of Who God Says I Am. I am so humbled that he allows us to share his voice and his words with you, our awesome C4C Family! 

Make sure to check out www.Truefaced.com and his other books, see picture to the left for those. 

(And, forgive my shameless plug...it just means so much to have his approval and endorsement of my work.)

With Love,

Shelley

The Successful Person's Worst Day ~ Guest Post by John Lynch @TrueFaced

The Successful Person's Worst Day

by John Lynch

Those who are of high capacity can have a harder time getting in touch with the pain God allows to free you from a greater pain. In truth, you often don’t struggle with life the way many others do. So, it is tempting to surround yourself with others who appear on their game; operating in a higher gear than others. You can be deluded into thinking you are uniquely and largely impervious to need; like you can override need with resolve, skill, resource, ministry and mission. This is where great danger lives. There is a worst day that the high capacity person is vulnerable to, maybe more than anyone else. I imagine that I can make something meaningful, that I can create goodness or do this Christian life without actually needing Christ, in this moment. Subtle, it goes like this: “Jesus, I’m deeply grateful for the Cross. I know there are things wrong with me. I don’t do the big sins, but I’m aware for those who have been given much, more is expected. I get that. So, I’ll keep helping those others who seem to struggle so much. I don’t know why they can’t just figure it out and get on with their lives.”

It all carries the illusion that great capacity, intelligence and direction equate to a better life. It does not, necessarily. I can carry a delusion that my sins are of a lesser nature than those of others. Again, I play the fool.

You can come to actually live like you don’t need to trust God for every good thing accomplished. Your worst is day is the day you become seduced into thinking you’re able to pull off anything, without trusting Him in everything. You won’t see it right away. That’s why it’s so devious. It might seem like your best day. After all, you were on your game, you pulled off some pretty incredible stuff. But at the root, there is a self-made pride that gives God a tip for capacity and talents. But eventually fruit will be born. It will be rotten and useless. And you will wonder why others don’t let you lead them the way you think they should. Then you will look around and discover you have been paying God with your efforts, instead of allowing His effort in you to shine in great love.

The goal of this life is not having less issues than others, or even being able, through natural gifting and talent, to do more things for mankind. The goal is always letting Christ be great by our trusting dependence upon His ability in us. As my friend Bill Thrall often says to leaders; “He doesn’t need our excellence. He wants us to trust Him, so His excellence can be lived out in us.”

The greatest gift you with high capacity, success and strength can give yourself would be a number of safe others who can tell you what they see. A place where you are loved enough to be able to ask, “How am I affecting you?” They will eventually tell you if you let them. And you may discover you’ve been living many, many worst days, in the midst of your apparent lack of need.

It will take a humility which allows another in, another who is able to tell you, “You’ve forgotten the only thing that matters, trust working itself out in love.” For you who dare risk such a thing, you are about to experience influence over “success”, being trusted over being accommodated, receiving love, over only giving out of appearances of love.

We deeply need you, wonderfully gifted leader. We just first need you to stop believing we need you more than you need him, more than you need us…

Connect with John Lynch and the Rest of the Leaders of this growing Tribe of Grace HERE