When Israel\u2019s leaders turned to Jephthah for help, they were in distress and wanted to \u2018use\u2019 him. So Jephthah said, in essence, \u2018Let\u2019s get an understanding of the type of relationship we\u2019re going to have.\u2019 At that point, he negotiated with them and ended up in a top leadership spot. When your trust has been violated, you need to forgive. By doing so, you set yourself free. But you must exercise wisdom in how to move forward. God doesn\u2019t expect you to put yourself in a position to be hurt again. <\/p>\n
Perhaps you\u2019ve heard the story of the guy who went to the doctor with a severe burn on his right ear. He explained, \u2018I was ironing and watching television when the phone rang, and I picked up the iron instead of the phone.\u2019 Puzzled, the doctor said, \u2018But how did you get the burn on your left ear?\u2019 The man exclaimed, \u2018Because he called back!\u2019 <\/p>\n
Bottom line: when you\u2019ve been \u2018burned\u2019 by someone, be careful about putting yourself in a position to be burned over and over again. Forgiveness must be freely given, but trust must be earned. Your offender must show the fruit of repentance\u2014consistent behaviour that gives evidence that he or she has had a change of heart. John the Baptist said, \u2018Prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins and turned to God.\u2019<\/i> <\/p>\n
You need two things: grace and wisdom. Grace means extending to others the same forgiveness that God has extended to you. Wisdom means knowing what kind of relationship you can have with that person in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When Israel\u2019s leaders turned to Jephthah for help, they were in distress and wanted to \u2018use\u2019 him. So Jephthah said, in essence, \u2018Let\u2019s get an understanding of the type of relationship we\u2019re going to have.\u2019 At that point, he negotiated with them and ended up in a top leadership spot. When your trust has been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1587"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1587\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}