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?☕️ Valeriy Bayko BIBLE BREAKFAST (#353) 03/12/20 (eng) “Prayer of the offended and the offender…”

BIBLE BREAKFAST (#353) 03/12/20 (English)

“Prayer of the offended and the offender…”

? Luke 17:3-5 “Take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you 7 times in a day, and 7 times in a day returns to you, saying, ‘I repent’, you shall forgive him. And the apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith.'”

▪️Interesting, what was it about the words of Christ: “If your neighbor sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you 7 times in a day, and 7 times in a day returns to you, saying, ‘I repent,’ you shall forgive him”, that caused the apostles to have this kind of reaction: “increase our faith”?

▪️Was it the amount of times they were supposed to forgive in a day if a conflict arose? Was it the hardship of forgiving so many times a day when someone hurts you? Or was it the doubt that the offender would ask for forgiveness that many times? 

▪️Maybe it was everything together. Usually people ask “increase our faith” when we are talking about supernatural miracles. Application- is no smaller a miracle where faith and help from God is needed, without which, it is impossible to deal with your emotions and behave correctly. 

▪️ “Increase our faith”- this means we have faith but for this kind of miracle of application, we need more. 

▪️These disciples of Christ, a couple of chapters back, we read that they were sent by Christ to preach, pray for the sick, and perform miracles, during which they had enough faith to do. 

▪️But hearing this teaching about application, about forgiveness, they understood that trying to do this without greater faith, without the strength from God, they will not be able to do it the same way they did when they prayed for the sick and performed miracles. 

▪️Application (the ability to admit that you are guilty, ask for forgiveness, and the ability to forgive and forgive sincerely, and not just once)- this is a true miracle. This is the character of Christ, His mind: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5).

▪️Maybe they had to hear this, or themselves experience this emotional pain where your state is “I can’t forgive” or “it’s so hard to forgive”, and this feeling is stronger than the understanding that they need to do this. 

▪️Or the state in which you are the offender but you do not have the strength or courage to admit this, humble yourself, and repent before the one whom you offended. 

▪️As in everything, we need the strength from above so that when we encounter a situation where our peace is destroyed, we can recover that peace instead of carrying this in our heart for years, being tortured by it and torturing others due to having an immature spiritual state in which the level of faith is low. 

▪️The prayer of the offended or the offender to God: “Increase my faith”! Give me strength, wisdom, the ability to love, doing what You would do in my place. Help me not to harden, help me not to close up, but to deal with all of my emotions correctly so that we may act according to what is written: “‘Be angry and do not sin’: do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil.” (Ephesians 4:26-27)

? Have a good and peaceful day and life! If your peace becomes disturbed, pray “increase our faith”, or help us to resolve this becuase without Your strength and help it is difficult to deal with this task. (With prayer, Valeriy Bayko).

? P.S. If needed, share this post with others. Thank you for the re-post. (If you have a comment or a question, you may type it below this post or write to me at [email protected])