Learning to Forgive – We Are Not Enemies

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In this life, we WILL be mistreated. We WILL be wronged. We WILL suffer misfortune.

So why does God call us to such difficult things as The Golden Rule? It would be much easier for us to go the easier way, hanging on to our hate and our anger towards others.

But He has a better plan! He wants to pour out blessings by making us more like Him, and that requires us to learn how to FORGIVE OUR ENEMIES.

Listen to this powerful conversation as we share examples of forgiveness that we have witnessed with our own eyes. Visit

WeAreNotEnemies.com!

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Transcript

Elaine Beck 0:12
Hi, everyone, Elaine Beck here. And as always, I’m excited. You know, that’s my word, because, you know, you get excited about things that mean are meaningful things that God gives you especially. And as you know, we’ve got this new program though that’s a grassroots effort called WANE, w a n e, we are not enemies. And WANE means to “go away from” to “let go of.” And what we’re going to go away from and let go of is the anger, the hate, the frustration, the dissension, the deception, and things that are going on in our country right now. All of those wicked things that we do, and we we’ve got so alive in our country that, that God is not happy with us about. So this program is something so powerful and so exciting. And again, today I have my friend, Melinda Schepemaker, who is that the head of the offices here, and she is just so wonderful, too. She does such a great job. I’m trying to complimentary, slobbering all over myself here. But you know, she’s she’s just amazing woman and she helps keep everybody afloat here and keeps us together and her organization. Organizational skills have helped us put this program this grassroots program together. But we’ve worked with some amazing people.

Melinda Schepemaker 1:46
We have a lot of people have put some time and energy commitment to it. There are a lot of people excited about this different companies we’ve spoken to. So there’s just I have a really good feeling about this. I believe that, you know, God can do much through the forgiveness aspect of what we’re trying to do here. We are not enemies. Right.

Elaine Beck 2:05
Right. And my favorite person that, you know, we’re working with with this was the first person we took it to and was talking to was Dr. Ben Carson, and his his entire crew and and organization. And they got as excited as we are. And I hope you are too because God is using it. And he is going to make a difference in this world. He always does. And he always will. But there’s, it’s his timing. And I love the timing right now. I think this is the year that we are in a position where we can make such a wonderful change by softening our hearts.

Melinda Schepemaker 2:47
I mean, the I think that timing is just, there’s just so much hatred and anger and, and, you know, a divided country going on. And there’s so much focus on attacking other people, regardless of of which side of the political spectrum you land on. There’s just a lot of that animosity.

Elaine Beck 3:07
yeah, because the thing is, is, you know, the thing that I’ve realized that God shared with me is that, that person that thinks that, you know, things are going well, because of who we’ve got in offices now. They are as passionate about how they feel, as I am about how I feel. So this isn’t about who’s right or who’s wrong. This is a war between good and evil that’s been going on since the beginning of time. And God’s giving us an opening a chance, a really beautiful way to serve Him first, which we all should be doing anyway. Serve him first, and yet, cure and heal our land. Just like the Scripture says.

Melinda Schepemaker 3:59
Recognizing like the whole concept. We are not enemies, we have to recognize our enemy is Satan. Yes. And Satan is the antithesis of everything that is good and right. Forgiveness is something that he hates, and he tries to keep us from ever extending towards another person. So just recognizing that enemy and learning to love one another and have the attitude of forgiveness. That’s important. That’s important for healing.

Elaine Beck 4:26
Well, one of the things I always bring up because you know, I’ve been around this world long enough to be able to speak to it is that I’m so saddened all the time when I see that people don’t any longer practice things like the golden rule. Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you if they were practicing that with their people being shot in the streets and burning down other people’s livelihoods and stealing people’s cars, and rams hacking people’s livelihoods like their stores and stuff, would those things happen if they thought that it was going to come back to them.

Melinda Schepemaker 5:04
No, it wouldn’t. Because again, the golden rule you treat others as you want to be treated. Right, right, that would eliminate so much.

Elaine Beck 5:10
It would, it would, it would bring us back to where it was, when, when the country first started. And we were building up at a country with God, you know, as the center of it. I mean, he’s all through the Constitution, you know, they try and deny that we’re a Judeo Christian country, but they can’t, it’s it’s there. I mean, they want to, they want to burn down all the buildings, because all of them have references to God and Jesus on him in Scripture and stuff. And praise the Lord last year, we were able to stop this, it is the idiocy of not allowing the 10 Commandments to be on government property or on private property, and the cross and, and all of the things that we, you know, we love so much and we know are significant to our Lord and Savior and to God our Creator. Isn’t that wonderful?

Melinda Schepemaker 6:10
It is wonderful. And it was it was amazing to see that, you know, there are still people fighting for what’s good and right as well. Yeah. So I mean, this is a an amazing project. It’s an it’s a biblical concept and important concept. But I know it’s also a personal thing for you. So how is this we are not enemies? How is this personal to you in your life?

Elaine Beck 6:31
Wow. It of course, as I’ve said before, it goes back to the vision that God gave me and the scripture that he gave me, which is Second Chronicles 7:14. And, you know, to me, it’s like, I’ve been hurt in my life, we all have, we’ve all been, you know, offended, we’ve all been hurt. We’ve all been some of us physically, some mentally, some in every way. You know, whether it was bullied at school, or it was, you know, abused at home, or in an relationship or whatever. And so we’ve all had enemies, we’ve all had people that hurt us so bad that we, we were felt like, there was no hope. There was nothing that we could do to make it better, that what God tells us is so totally different. He tells us that, you know, we answer for what we do, they answer for what they do. And if we, from that hurt, do as the Bible says not to do the Bible says, you know, if, if you are wronged, you’re not to, if you are angry, do not sin. Yes, that’s the word angry and be angry and sin not. So if you do that, that means that you don’t go around telling everybody how awful that person is, or how nasty that one is, or how they hurt you and how they’re not good. And that doesn’t fix anything. And for you to carry that anger in your heart that weakens you, that brings you down that makes you less of a loving, kind person that God wants you to be. And so it’s so much easier just to say, I forgive them or trying to find, you know, we all play a part in everything.

Melinda Schepemaker 8:52
So you’ve personally had to take this journey of learning to forgive?

Elaine Beck 8:57
Oh, yes. Over and over in our lives. That’s what it’s about. Because we’re human. You know, we make mistakes, we may even inadvertently tell somebody that hurt their feelings.

Melinda Schepemaker 9:09
Yeah, we may need that forgiveness from others.

Elaine Beck 9:12
Absolutely, and we need God to forgive us every day. Because, like we know, we do have a human side and that human side is not pure. That human side is not without fault, without sin. That is the side of us that does think and do evil things. You know, in the Bible, it talks about the heart is deceitful, deceitful. And and it talks about all the different things that we do that we need to ask forgiveness for. It’s not always from someone else, either. Sometimes we have to forgive ourselves.

Melinda Schepemaker 9:50
Yes. And sometimes that’s the hardest thing to forgive yourself.

Elaine Beck 9:54
To forgive yourself and to forgive others who have totally, I mean, there’s injuries have been done to People, you know, I’ve often thought and I had a, I’ll give you a situation. Many years ago, I had a neighbor. And she was a young woman, probably in her 20s. And her brother and sister in law, got a call on Christmas Eve, that her mother was dying. So he put their their only child, their son in the car, they drove to Phoenix, they dropped her off, she got on a plane. And on the way back, a drunk driver hit their car. And within two weeks, both her brother and her nephew, that was their parents only son, her only brother, her only nephew, their only grandson, both died from that accident from somebody who went out and celebrated Christmas and killed them. And I want you to know, and this gives me chills, it makes me want to cry. That it was only a few weeks later, when I was talking to her, and trying to console her, that she told me that both her parents and her are praying for that young man who had a family too, who did something wrong. You know what I always say there, but for the grace of God go I. We all put ourselves in situations, the devil puts us in situations where we make wrong choices. Some pay a higher price than others. Yeah. And I said, you know if they can forgive that, why can’t we forgive others?

Melinda Schepemaker 11:39
No, it’s that is the power of forgiveness. It’s and the power of forgiveness like that you may feel that this person has wronged me so much. There’s no way I can forgive you. Right. But we can forgive through Christ. Yes, that is where we find that power to forgive because we can’t on our own not true forgiveness.

Elaine Beck 11:58
Yeah, we don’t have his strength, to do the things that we need to do, to stand against wrong, but at the same time, for give those that innocently or accidentally or in a moment make a bad decision that affects us, you know, then who are we? You know, if we want to be a true child of God, we have to forgive the people that see things differently, and, and help them instead of being angry at them? Why don’t we pray for them, for God to soften their hearts, to take the veil from their eyes to let them see the truth of His Word, to go to Him and ask for, you know, a place in His heaven. I think that that’s, that takes a lot of courage. We have to become more courageous in this country in so many ways.

Melinda Schepemaker 12:57
You know, the amazing thing about prayer is that when you are praying not only for the strength to forgive others, but you start praying for those people that you naturally have that either hatred or animosity or unforgiveness towards God changes your heart. Yeah, in the process. Yes. God makes you a better person you draw closer to Him through those moments where you are praying.

Elaine Beck 13:22
That’s right. That’s right. And we’re out of time again, which always saddens me because we there’s so much to talk about on this but you know, we’ll be getting back with you guys again later. Thank you again for being here and, and sharing this time with me, Melinda, I just love it when you and I get to do this and and thank you all for being here. You know that. We hope you’re praying for everyone else, including your enemies, and that you are going to get on board and sign up on. WeAreNotEnemies.com Just go there and sign up. Like again. No money involved, no commitments, no donations, just doing what God asked of us. God bless you and we’re praying for you.

 

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