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    The Beauty of Forgiveness
    The Beauty of Forgiveness
    The Beauty of Forgiveness
    Ebook127 pages1 hour

    The Beauty of Forgiveness

    By Todd Rettburg

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    About this ebook

    The Beauty of Forgiveness looks into the life transforming idea that if we learn to forgive those that have hurt us, and ask for forgiveness for those we have injured and learn to forgive ourselves, God allows beauty to shine through in our lives.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCrossLink Publishing
    Release dateApr 15, 2016
    ISBN9781633570719
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      Book preview

      The Beauty of Forgiveness - Todd Rettburg

      The Beauty of Forgiveness

      THE BEAUTY OF FORGIVENESS

      TODD RETTBERG

      The Beauty of Forgiveness

      CrossLink Publishing

      www.crosslinkpublishing.com

      Copyright © 2015 by Todd Rettberg.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, except for brief quotations in reviews, without the written permission of the author.

      Printed in the United States of America. All rights reserved under International Copyright Law.

      ISBN 978-1-63357-071-9

      All scriptures quotations are taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, NIV Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

      Contents

      The Ugly Truth

      The Deep Wounds That Scar

      Bitterness: The Root That Defiles

      The Allure of Revenge

      The Ugliness of Unforgiveness

      I’m Too Dirty to Be Forgiven

      The Mirror Says, Don’t Forgive Yourself.

      My Extreme Makeover Story

      The Deep Cleanse That Forgiveness Brings

      The Glamour of Paying Forgiveness Forward

      The Beautiful Truth

      Acknowledgments

      I would like to give my heartfelt thanks to the following people:

      My Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, for the beautiful forgiveness He has given me through the cross. Without the cross, forgiveness means nothing and my life would be lost.

      Bill Ireland, who takes my words and makes them sound so much better. Bill, you have been such a blessing to me through the process of writing this book.

      All those who attend Sierra Vista Community Church and have allowed me to be their pastor for the past fifteen years. I have learned so much from all of you.

      Most importantly, my wife Lisa, who has had to forgive me so many times in our twenty-five-year marriage but still loves me after all the mistakes I have made.

      My three sons, Joshua, Nathan, and Tim, for allowing me to be a part of their lives. Guys, there is no greater joy than being your dad. I am so thankful for all of you for being my family and the love you have showered upon me.

      Introduction

      In my first book, Life’s A Pain, I took readers on a journey through my life and the lives of others who deal with chronic pain. I highlighted the discouragement, disappointment, and often, depression that comes with that experience. Pain affects people not just physically, but mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. My hope was to show people suffering with pain that God still has a purpose for them and is still at work in their lives. I also wanted to help those who are healthy to understand how to walk with people enduring pain. I hoped to show them that offering easy solutions or empty promises of prayer to those already struggling is not helpful but hurtful. We need people to walk the journey with us, not pat us on the back and tell us the sun will come out tomorrow. I think the church in general does a horrible job in walking with people who suffer with pain on a daily basis. So my hope was that God’s people would realize that we can do better.

      In this book, I tackle a subject that all Christians know about: forgiveness. But most of us struggle to live it. We Christians love the fact that Jesus has forgiven us, and we enjoy all the benefits that brings. But when it comes to forgiving others, or ourselves, we come up short. I’ve noticed during my fifteen years as a pastor that when I preach on forgiveness, I always get the biggest response. One Sunday, at the end of the sermon, I told people to use the three-by-five cards in their bulletins to write down the names of people they needed to forgive. We then invited all of them to come up and nail their cards to the wooden cross at the front of our sanctuary. It was so amazing to see people come up in tears as they forgave those who had offended them and released the burdens they had been carrying. By the end of our two services, there were so many three-by-five cards on the cross that you could hardly see the wood. Though I had always realized how crucial this issue is, that Sunday I understood how difficult it is. We find it genuinely hard to forgive those who have hurt us. And sometimes we can’t forgive ourselves for the pain we have caused.

      That was the morning I knew I needed to write this book.

      As you read it, my hope and prayer is that you will come to understand the true and wonderful beauty of forgiveness; that you will see how Jesus loved you so much He was willing to go to a cross and take your place; that He would die for your sins and the sins of the world. When I ponder that truth and realize the love that was showered on me, the feeling is so overwhelming it’s hard to hold back the tears. But I also hope that you will be able to look into the mirror and understand that no matter what you have done or are currently doing, God can and will forgive you if you reach out to Him and allow His sacrifice to become yours. I also desire that you will begin to know the power in forgiving others, that your ability to let them off the hook, releasing the hurt and pain, and moving on with your life, is at the center of all God intends for you.

      This is especially pertinent in marriage. You cannot have a healthy marriage without learning to forgive your spouse. It is inevitable that your partner will hurt you; it’s guaranteed. How will you deal with that? Will you be able to forgive him or her? Without forgiveness, divorce is in your future.

      You can’t have healthy family relationships if you don’t learn to forgive those who hurt you, whether intentionally or, more likely, unintentionally. What about the people you go to church with, play sports with, live next door to, or work with? You may be living in a prison without knowing it, because you are carrying around hurts you’ve never let go of from ten, fifteen, or even twenty years ago. They are affecting your current relationships, and you don’t know why.

      We are commanded to forgive by the one who showed us the ultimate beauty of forgiveness. My prayer is that this book will set you free as you allow God to move on your heart, process the pain, and forgive those who have deeply wounded you once and for all.

      The Beauty of Forgiveness awaits you. It has the power to change the depths of your being. And it will as you allow the Lord to heal you—in those places that have been so scarred you thought healing was not possible. There is forgiveness at the foot of the wonderful cross. It has already been done for you. May you learn to accept it and pay it forward, to live the life God planned for you while you were still being knit together in your mother’s womb.

      Chapter

      One

      The Ugly Truth

      Your baby is ugly!

      Could you imagine walking into your best friend’s hospital room, taking a look at their brand new baby, and blurting out those words? Of course not—because even if you thought it was true, you would never say it. Babies are so innocent and loveable! How could such a tiny little wrapped-up burrito be ugly? But for all you parents out there, let’s be honest—when your babies were born, they did not look so good. They were probably various shades of green and purple, and they looked as though they weren’t quite done and needed to cook some more. Of course, after the birth process is over, the nurse takes that precious little thing that looks like a lizard and places it on your chest—and you’re sure you’ve never seen anything more beautiful. After the nurse cleans little junior up, aren’t you thankful from the bottom of your heart that he or she now looks human?

      In my role as a pastor, I have visited many new parents in their hospital rooms and held their precious offspring in my arms. Because I have three teenage sons, I know what those parents are going to face, but I just don’t want to ruin this wonderful day with the news that their baby is truly ugly. It will not take long before they come to that conclusion on their own.

      I remember the births of all three of my sons as though they were only yesterday. Our first, Joshua, was an emergency Caesarean-section baby. So, he actually did come out looking beautiful because he didn’t have to take the trip through mom’s birth canal and get all banged up in the process. But our second son, Nathan, and our third son, Timothy, were born the old-fashioned way. They both had nice cone-heads, and I thought my wife had given birth to aliens. Thankfully, a few hours after the trauma, they began to settle into their new heads, and you could begin to see that they belonged to the human race. I’m happy to say that they have become very handsome young men—of course, taking after their father.

      But the fact remains—they are ugly, too, and have been that way since birth.

      Before you think I’m heartless and hate babies, let me explain. The ugly I’m talking about is the ugliness of sin that they were born with. Each of us comes into this world with the stain of sin. We are born with a sinful

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