Winter: A Time of Reverence: #2
The World is such a Busy Place. We Can Lose Things that are Important. Winter is a Time of Endurance and Remembrance.
Having reverence of course includes God, in a spiritual sense. But in a broader sense, it also means to have a deep respect for someone or something.
This is what winter is! It’s a time to think, ponder, meditate!
We All Need Recognition and Understanding
No matter how random or eccentric our thoughts and beliefs and opinions may be, we all have a need to be heard, and to be accepted by someone.
God gave us two ears and one mouth, so we listen more than we speak. Do we use our two ears to truly listen to others, — to understand where they are coming from, — even if we totally disagree with them?
Winter is a time to contemplate! The apostle Paul says to prefer others over ourselves. This does not mean we have to agree with whatever they say!
It just means we have to care about the person and concentrate on their need, tolerate them and be patient — even more than we focus on what they say, and absorb it all. It’s the person that matters, more than what they proclaim.
It may be a selfish way of seeing this, but our goal should be to have others hold us in high esteem — because they know we truly care about them — that we love them, and it is not conditional upon anything they say or do.
It’s a heart connection even more than it is a head connection.
A Model of Mine in This Regard was Singer John Denver
I played and sang with him a few weeks when we were in college. This was of course in his ‘BC’ days — before he was a celebrity. The first time I met John, he acted like he had been waiting for weeks just to meet me. I like to say his attitude was not, “Here I am,” but instead, “There YOU are.”
He tried to treat everyone as the most important person in the world to him. I knew him and knew there were plenty of folks he wouldn’t agree with. But it was the person who was important to him, not his perceptions.
People couldn’t miss John’s warmth and his respect for them, even if they were miles apart in their thoughts, philosophy, beliefs, or attitudes.
Psychologists Speak of Disillusionment in Winter
Psychologists say that Christmas is a time of deep disillusionment and even depression for many people. It doesn’t make sense to me personally, but I hear enough reports to know it must be true. And they say this can continue into the spring when attitudes begin to change.
Remember the four seasons: Winter, beginning December 21, is a time of REVERENCE. Spring, beginning March 21, is a time of RENEWAL. Summer, beginning June 21, is a time of RESOLVE. Fall or Autumn, beginning September 21, is a time of REFLECTION.
Winter Can be a Time of Loneliness
Especially with the virus, we feel shut in the past year, and more alone. But it’s true for a lot of people most of the time.
Disillusionment and loneliness provide time for some serious thinking, although at these times, hope can seem like fluffy clouds — or a mirage.
Sometimes we just fret over what is termed, ‘life’s unchanging.’
We Fret Over Problems and Problem-People
I think all of us wish Jesus hadn’t made us the two promises that he did: (1) in life, we will have problems (John 16:33), and (2) in life, we will experience problem people (Luke 17:1). They might be called what are ‘the ingredients of life.’
Too Often, We Simply Have Too Much Zeal
With the new year come new ideas and we want to rush off and get to them. They are often called ‘new year resolutions.’ But if we don’t add GOALS and PURPOSES into the mix, this can bring loneliness and disillusionment.
I view this as ‘having zeal without direction.’
Psalm 90:12 says, “(Lord), teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. If we don’t establish a ‘track to run on’ with our zeal (some wisdom), we may just wonder how many days we have left and why.
Winter is a Time for Us to Expect More of Ourselves
We all want to become more mature and see life from new perspectives.
But winter is also a time to view life more vertically, and less horizontally.
And it’s a time to remember others and their impact and influence on us.
We are not meant to compare ourselves to others or to judge others. Jesus asks why we can judge the sliver in someone else’s life when we have a log in our own eye. He also asks, “Why do you reason in your heart?”
It’s a time to tally up scores of the past and to maybe give up some games we’ve been playing — both with ourselves and with others.
And winter is a time, especially with a new presidential inauguration, for us to pray for our leaders, bless them, and ask God to guide them — whether we agree with them — remembering it’s the person, not the platform.
I love the statement by Sir Winston Churchill about politicians. He very humorously said: “A politician must be able to predict, with unerring accuracy, the future course of world events — and then be able to explain to the general public why they did not come to pass.”
We expect our politicians, and especially our president, as being people who have prophetic future wisdom. Most often, they can’t see past their noses, and the longer they’re in office, the more nearsighted they become.
In early winter, we want to be enlarged, to have wider borders, to have more fruitful gardens. If we don’t, then later too many things turn to weeds.
But if we can use winter to give us new perspective, then we can flow into spring and summer with new vigor and enthusiasm.
But remember: enthusiasm comes from two Greek words: ‘en theos.’ This means God in us. So it’s not something we do under our own steam.
Thus the gospel is called ‘the power of God’ (Romans 1:16). The gospel has a lot more than just salvation. Hebrews 6:9 speaks of ‘things that accompany salvation.’ The gospel impacts every area of our lives — if we let it.
Winter is the Best Time for Us to Forgive Others
And winter is a time to forgive others and to be less horizontal and more vertical in our thoughts and actions. It’s a time to refresh and regroup and live life on higher ground — at a higher level.
Forgiveness is best done in a time of remembering, and in a time of reverence, which is in the winter. In other seasons, we’re too preoccupied with other things.
Too many people view forgiveness as a strictly human endeavor. Paul would call this ‘dead works.’ The New Testament gospel talks about us forgiving — because we know how much God has forgiven us.
Jesus prayed from the cross: “Father, forgive them.” He knew forgiveness did not begin in him. We just tap into God and let his power work through us.
When we truly believe Jesus that this life consists of hurts, problems, offenses by other people, and things. Problems and offenses just come naturally. I’ve even started praying for God to send me his problems and offenses. I trust him enough to know he has my best at heart and wouldn’t harm me. This is sure better than problems and offenses coming from somewhere else!
Viewing things like this, forgiveness takes on a new dimension and power. We don’t feel we are ‘entitled to more.’
Our job is to respond to life the best we possibly can and not try to change all circumstances that try to bury us or people who try to annoy us.
Forgiveness is not an Elective — it is Required
But when we see that it is God in us, and his forgiveness of us that empowers us to forgive others, us forgiving others becomes much easier.
When we refuse, or just don’t forgive others, I wonder if Abba Father God doesn’t see us as standing at the foot of Christ’s cross saying, “Jesus, what you did wasn’t good enough for me! I demand more!”
God Does Not Simply Forgive Us of Our Sins and Wrongs
Yes, God has unconditional love and abundant grace that he lavishes on us. But his forgiveness is not just dependent on our flesh — on our humanity — on what we do or don’t do.
Our soul and spirit are important in our believing that God does forgive us, and it’s important for us to forgive others. It includes this, but WE are not the only ones in the spotlight. We are meant to be in oneness with God and living in unity with him. Jesus was clear: “Without me, you can do nothing.” It’s God working through us that brings about the will of God in us.
Forgiveness is not just an exercise of our flesh — our humanity. Of course, it includes this, but WE are not the only ones in the spotlight.
Forgiveness is Really a Legal Transaction
As a lawyer, I see this so clearly. It is not our forgiveness alone that gets the job of forgiveness done. It is the work of God — through his Holy Spirit — that gets the job done. The only reason we are forgiven by God is because of the blood of Jesus. The way we forgive others is by means of the blood of Jesus.
Before forgiveness is personal to us, it is personal to the person of God. He wants us to forgive for his benefit and for ours, not to mention the benefit of other people.
In forgiveness, our job is simply to (1) believe in Jesus, and (2) believe in the finished work of his cross, as described by the gospel he came to give us.
Legally, this is viewed as the ‘satisfaction of judgment.’ In court, if a judgment is satisfied, no one can collect on it again. Well, if Jesus’ death on the cross was the ‘satisfaction of judgment’ to God, then we know he is satisfied with it — so we should be satisfied with it too.
Forgiveness begins as a legal matter with God: “I forgive because of Jesus.” Then it becomes a release: “I release them from my anger because of Jesus.”
Again, if what Jesus did wasn’t enough for others, is it enough for me?
In Some Ways, We are All Victims in This Life
Some people are more victims than others. And others are more victors. But this is not where the rubber meets the road. We all must deal with problems, and with problem people who drain us and turn us to anger and revenge.
None of us have a ‘get out of jail card,’ except for the cross of Jesus.
It is the gospel of Jesus that I proclaim so much as ‘The Gospel Life Coach’ that is where ‘the rubber meets the road.’ Religion and law demand that we live life right. The gospel is the presence and power of God enabling us to live life better by accident than we can on purpose in ourselves.
Jesus says only God can forgive. Then he empowers us to forgive in his gospel power: “Whoever’s sins you forgive, they are forgiven unto them, and whoever’s sins you retain, they are retained” (John 20:21).
When we refuse or don’t forgive, it’s like a two-edged sword. It not only cuts the person we don’t forgive, but it cuts us too. In a parable, Jesus talks of us being like we’re in prison being tortured when we don’t forgive.
God gives us the authority of Jesus. This includes the power and authority to forgive — remembering its first of all a LEGAL matter, based on the finished work of the cross of Jesus. It is not just a PERSONAL matter. Yes, we enter into it. If someone rips us off for $5, that’s a pretty minor thing. But what about $50, or $500, or $5000, or $50,000? The more we feel like we are a VICTIM, the more we cannot be VICTORS in the situation.
If We Don’t Live God’s Gospel Truth, We Can Be Subject to Satan
II Timothy 2:25–26 is very descriptive. If we are not living in God’s truth, then we are already VICTIMS of Satan. Paul says we are ‘captives’ to him. So we start out on the losing end before we ever start if we don’t live the gospel.
The way we overcome this is to repent and forsake our humanistic, selfish ways, and to ask God to give us a belief in him and his ways, and then we become VICTORS and are released from the devil’s power. If we don’t do this, we remain his VICTIMS.
Paul Tells Us to ‘Forget the Past’ (Phil 3:13)
Forgetting the past means we think we would forget any wrongs done to us. But the fact is, we have memories like an elephant for anything bad done to us. We don’t FORGET it; we REMEMBER it. And the more we remember them, the more they become more vivid and worse in our minds.
This can’t literally mean what Paul says because he never forgot anything that happened to him in the past. He talked about his past frequently. If we think this is what he means, he’s a hypocrite which we know he wasn’t.
There is a past: a personal remembrance about bad things that happen to us. But what we are meant to do is to ‘superimpose the finished work of the cross of Jesus over them,’ — seeing them more vertically, not just horizontally. Jesus says he never leaves us. Thus, he is with us during bad times too.
We are meant to place GOOD thoughts over BAD ones. And these good thoughts are the power of God in us, helping us deal with the bad.
Of course, we still have bad thoughts — we don't forget them. But if our trust is in God and his Son Jesus, and not in our own flesh, then God is able to work in us and alleviate those bad thoughts over time. He helps not to be VICTIMS of them, but to be VICTORS over them. It all begins with, “Father, forgive them” — and then, “Help me to join with you in my personal forgiveness.”
Winter Is the Best Time to See Forgiveness Become a Reality
We have more time to ponder God, and to enter into living his ways. And I’ve come to see the reason some people have poor health, and can’t receive healing is they have unforgiveness and other negative emotions inside.