You know, it's still a practice that I honestly just have to, I don't know, pick up every
day.
Because there is a part of me that's prone to going back to, you know, to hiding or to
isolating or to, you know, figuring it out on my own.
So yeah.
And that's, I think that's something I think for men, especially, I mean, I think modern
women do that as well.
They just do it differently.
But in terms of just the taking on the burden ourselves, you know, that is, that's the part
where that's why the cross in salvation is so profound.
But if you've, if you've been trained in religion, let me put it that way, because walking with
Jesus, having a relationship with the Lord, being in church, there can be lots of different
interpretations of that.
But if you've been trained in church or religion or that kind of culture for a while, you can
ease, you can come to the point where you're dealing with your humanity, dealing with all
of your stuff, sort of like put away the profoundness of the cross.
Because it's like, it's like, I would be, I was raised in church and so I understood
this from a very early age.
And so when I became a young man, late teens, early twenties, and I'm like encountering
the real world sort of for the first time in my life in independence and in all that
kind of way.
And I would see people just get really saved and really have this transformation.
They have this encounter because it was their first time in that sort of way, receiving
this truth of they've lived in the, the, all of the trauma and the, the, the weight of
sin for their whole life.
And then for the first time, you're hearing, Hey, you don't have to really carry that burden
anymore.
You're like, Oh my gosh, that's amazing.
That's mind blowing.
That's like, you're just like, man, you're giving me like, seriously, I can come out
of this prison and hear a lot of other individuals like myself, yet we've been on a prison for
a long time.
We're kind of really, we're kind of in it as fast, especially if you got saved and when
you're very, very young, you don't really realize the burden of sin in that way except
for you do because you still are sinful.
You still are carrying the weight of sin because you're not processing in this way that we're
talking about.
Like you're still, Oh, I've got a, I've got to religion has a way of being a very poor
taskmaster to try to still put it back on you, just try to put it back in.
You've, you've got it, you're still not getting it right.
You're still not, you're still missing it.
You're still the, you know, there's always a carrot in front of you.
There's always something else to achieve spiritually, you know, in your religiosity.
And so that can be just as destructive of just flat out, not being saved at all.
You know?
So we work out all of our individual salvation with fear and trembling in the sense that
it's like, I have to come to, uh, uh, an authentic point for me, right?
And it's, it's groups like this.
And I love the fact that you, that you were able to have confession within a group of
men and, and that, uh, that you felt comfortable and loved and championed and secure enough
to be able to do that.
That is one of the things that, you know, we talked about last week was, you know, that's
like week three, um, is repentance and confession.
You know, of course we, we talk about that scripture, confessing your sins one for another
and, uh, and being healed.
And so that is part of the, um, the heartwork journey in that process.
Um, week four, uh, heart check in number four, we are getting into the area of forgiveness.
So first of all, permission, we give Holy Spirit permission to come in and to reveal
the areas of our heart that need helping that traumas that need healed.
We then begin to reveal the lies and the untruth that we're believing about ourselves,
about God, about situations, about other people.
And then as we begin to realize the truth, we come into agreement.
with the truth. So we repent, as I was saying at the beginning
of the call. So we go through repentance. And then through the
process of repentance, at the end of that comes the confession
part where we have to confess, this is the behavior, this is
the actions, these are the things that I've been involved
with, this is the patterns of thinking that I've had. I'm
confessing these things, because now I'm realizing the truth and
the process of coming out of agreement and repenting. The
confession is sort of the processing of that. And then
comes the very important part of forgiveness, which is the
releasing and the untethering of what has happened to you, what
has happened through you, and what has happened because of
you. Right? Because sometimes we need to release forgiveness
towards someone else. Sometimes we need to release forgiveness
towards ourselves, we need to forgive ourselves. And then
sometimes we need to be forgiven because of what we've done to
others. So depending on who you are in the story, and what story
we're talking about at which time, you can be all three. And
trust me, I've been all three. And so it's all good. So
founding scriptures, of course, in this area of forgiveness,
Ephesians 4.23, forgive one another, just as God forgave
you because of what Christ has done. So God, who doesn't have
to forgive you, because he's holy, and he's perfect, and he's
right, and he is far above us. But because of what Christ did,
God then has the ability or has the measure to be able to
forgive you because of what Christ did. So that's powerful.
And Colossians 3.13, remember, the Lord forgave you, so you
must also forgive others. Does anybody struggle with that?
Because even though you understand mentally, you know,
like, like, hey, you know, I know I've been forgiven. But
this thing about forgiving someone else, because of what
I've been through that. It's hard. Sometimes. Anybody? Yeah.
Anybody want to talk about that? What happened? What that was?
Oh, I don't know. Was that somebody else come up? I'll jump
in. And this one's, it's super personal. And it's taken better
part of like seven months. So I think I've been divorced for
maybe three years, separated and divorced for almost five,
something like that. And then I had really the honor and
privilege of taking a shot at reconciliation last summer. And
so, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so without getting into any of the
details, 88 days, Labor Day of 23. Essentially, my former
spouse said she couldn't do this. And she said, we're done.
And and so I gave her the space she needed to check back in a
week later and really asked, you know, I was confused, shocked,
everything kind of came out of the blue for me. At least the
pace that we were at kind of the things that we were navigating
toward. And, and so as I circled back, you know, can we end?
Well, can I can you help me understand? She doubled, she
ultimately doubled down like, well, you weren't doing this,
and you weren't doing that. And she kind of had the secret list
of things that she'd been keeping an eye on.
My ex wife wrote me wrote me that list.
Yeah, it's, and it's like, I mean, it's triggered something
really, really deep in me that hasn't been active for quite a
while. This just deeper shame and identity. And so I had I do
voice memo, like, for me to get something out of my body, like
I'll pull my phone out and record, like, it's so whether
it's writing or whatever, for me, it's voice memo. Yeah, I
just felt I felt foolish. I felt angry. I felt betrayed. I lied
to you. I mean, I feel like all these big emotions. And, and
it's taken since September, whatever, whatever Labor Day is
last year, for me to work on letting go of that, like,
that's and I
I don't even know if I could say fully forgiven.
I don't know if I'll end up,
I don't think she feels like I need to forgive her,
but in my heart, like there's a blockage,
or at least that blockage is getting smaller,
and so I need to release, like fully release that.
There's a part of me that's still holding on, so.
Okay, so it's just a process.
Yeah.
Really, yeah.
That's it.
And I think that's more honest and real
than just like, oh, I've forgiven,
you know, I've taken care of that.
It's like, that's just in the past,
and I've already processed that and everything.
It's like, well, that's kind of one of the big things
about heart work in terms of it being a protocol,
a step-by-step sort of process
that you can really condense.
I mean, obviously you can, when you're learning it,
you're processing it for the first time or whatever,
or processing it for real, I guess,
for the first time sometimes,
because I know a lot of people have done heart work
and a lot of these processes and counseling
or whatever in the past,
but it is a template that you can take with you
for the rest of your life to process things
and to get good at processing them.
There was a book that was written years ago
called The Road Less Traveled.
M. Scott Peck wrote this book,
and it is based on the poem by Longfellow,
The Road Less Traveled.
And he starts the book out with life is hard.
That's the first sentence of the book.
Life is hard.
And his point in the book,
the very first sort of point he makes is that, you know,
if you take the road less traveled,
it's hard because it's less traveled,
and it's not easy to get down
because the path is not as wide
and there's not as much, you know,
ease to get down that road.
But if you learn early on how to solve problems
and become a good problem solver,
then life becomes easier.
And you get to the end of the path
and you enjoy the product of the road less traveled
and you get good at these things and life becomes easier.
And so the same thing with heartwork, you know,
the more you get good at coming into surrender, permission,
and coming into these ideas
of changing your thought patterns and coming into truth,
processing repentance, confession, and forgiveness,
then the easier life becomes when you do it.
So it's a tool for you.
You know, forgiveness really,
and guys, I don't know if you've ever thought
about this before,
but how many of you thought about just forgiveness
in general, outside of this work?
And there's like, you know, you've understood like, okay,
we all understand that forgiveness is necessary,
but if you've ever,
very few people have ever spent any time
actually thinking about forgiveness,
like forgiving or the fact that you have to forgive,
but forgiveness is not a feeling.
Forgiveness doesn't happen when you feel like it.
Like if you're ever processing forgiveness and going, okay,
I know I need to forgive,
but I'm going to do it when it's really authentic.
And when it's really authentic,
I'll probably feel something.
So at that moment is when I'll process forgiveness.
And that just isn't true
because lots of times that feeling never happens.
Lots of times the feeling of what you should do
never comes to motivate you to do it.
So relying on a feeling to process forgiveness is incorrect
because forgiveness isn't a feeling,
not that they can't be associated with feelings,
but forgiveness itself, the process is not a feeling.
It's a choice.
It is something that you do of your own volition.
It's something that you do
because it's not just the right thing to do.
It is the right thing to do,
but that's not the only motivation.
You don't do forgiveness just because,
well, it's just the right thing to do.
I mean, if that's enough, fine.
But forgiveness is also something that releases
not only the other person, but it also releases you.
It is the culmination of the forgiveness,
of the repentance and confession.
So as repentance is changing the mind,
confession is an action of sort of like admitting it
and coming into like vocalizing it,
the forgiveness part.
is the releasing.
It is the chains literally falling to the ground portion
of this healing process, right?
The bandage is coming off because you have released
and you've untethered yourself from this situation.
And if an abuser, if somebody has abused you
and they were the abuser and you're the victim,
as long as you have walk in unforgiveness towards the abuser,
then you're still the victim.
So if you don't wanna be the victim anymore,
for instance, this is just a for instance,
if you don't wanna be the victim anymore,
then you have to release the abuser, right?
So you can see very simply how forgiveness
is the process of untethering yourself from the situation.
Right?
So it's not a feeling, it's a choice.
There is a forgiveness template that's in the book
and that template is designed to just process a prayer.
Now that forgiveness template was given to us
and was shared to us by a man who is an insurance owner.
He owns an insurance company in Alaska of all places
and he had environmental disease and he got healed
of environmental disease literally
by processing forgiveness.
No hype, no music, no demonstrative dramatic,
oh, encounter or anything,
literally processing forgiveness.
And he now runs a wellness clinic
where people call in over the phone
because for crying out loud, he's in Alaska.
I mean, who goes to Alaska for counseling?
You just call in.
And so they have a call center
and they process people forgiveness mechanically
and they have statistics that say for every person
that has this kind of work of the flesh
or has this kind of manifestation of sickness in their body,
when they do this kind of forgiveness
and they process it this way,
so many percentage of them get healed in their body.
Like amazing.
This is the template that was given to us by this man.
And it is the process of just simply releasing
just in rote, not by trying to feel it,
not trying to just do it,
but just simply doing it because it's necessary,
because it's good, because it's scriptural
and because it's something that is part of the process.
It's the closure part of it, right?
And so this is kind of like the revelation
that I wanna give you in terms of what forgiveness is
and why it's important.
And the other thing is,
is that it does come in layers, guys.
What did Jesus say about forgiveness?
More specifically, what did Jesus say
about the number of times that forgiveness is necessary?
70 times seven.
70 times seven is what his answer was.
Should I give my, and the guy was asking the question,
he was like, should I forgive him seven times?
No, you should forgive him 70 times seven.
What?
What do you mean 70 times seven?
Now, if you do the math, right?
We do, that's very easy, it's 490.
So if you wanna put a number on it,
I guess, according to scripture,
if you forgive 490 times, then you're done forgiving.
Now, does it take that long?
I don't know, maybe sometimes it does,
sometimes it doesn't.
But if you wanna put a number on it,
you do it 490 times and then you're done.
You don't have to forgive anymore after that.
And I had a man, it was a businessman,
and that was a revelation to him,
the 490, the seven times 70.
He says, because I'm a really good grudge holder,
this guy was, this is his testimony.
He goes, I'm a businessman.
And he worked for the big ministry
that I had worked with for a long time.
He was the chief operations officer.
So this guy was all business.
I mean, you had to remind him
that he was doing ministry work
in order to like do the thing, right?
And hey, you remember this is a church, right?
You know, like yeah, whatever.
And so he was operations, he was business, he was numbers.
Man, he could get stuff done like amazing.
This guy was a really brilliant businessman.
And he told me some things sometimes.
and I'll tell you this next thing. But he said, you know, that scripture came to me because
he goes, I've had a lot of forgiveness to process to people that have stolen from me,
been wrong to me, family members, all kinds of things. And he said, and I just decided that it
was going to be 490 times. He says, and I've literally counted on times. He goes, you know
what? I've never gotten to 490. Somewhere along the way, forgiveness happened and it was processed
and it was good and it was released. So, you know, the principle holds true.
And, um, the other thing is he told me, he said, um, when I was having a, like a mentoring session
with him and I was telling him some things I was going through and I was young at the time. I was,
I think I was younger than 30. And, um, he just stopped me in the mid sentence,
just me going on and on and on and on and on about my life's problems and what I had questions
about and what I was concerned or worried about and so forth. He said, Hey, he said, just hold
on a second. I said, he said, if you ever failed before and I'm like, well, yeah, of course I've
failed before. He goes, no. I mean, have you ever like failed? Like just miserably fail,
hang your head in shame, walking, you know, the dog doesn't even want to look at you. You're such
a failure type thing, you know? And I go, ah, I don't know that I've ever done that. And I,
and I'm thinking, and I don't ever want to do that because that's terrible. I mean, who wants
to like, nobody wants to do that. And essentially he said to me, he's like, yeah, he says, well,
he says, experience that basically go fail and then come back and talk to me.
And, um, it was just in a few short years that I actually, from beyond that point that I actually
went through divorce and failed in my family. And it wasn't because of that conversation,
but that conversation came to back to me and it made a lot more sense to me. It's,
I was like, Oh wow. And he told me, he proceeded to tell me how he had lost his fortune twice
twice. And he had to get it all back twice because of business and family and different things.
And it's not until you experience some failure in life, lots of times that you really start
understanding like, ah, man, there's some really, um, important lessons and you can start talking
to other people about, um, some real things about what's happening, where to go, what to do,
not to take things so heavily. So sometimes that, that, that the things that are really
of record and really important, those are the things to pay attention to, right? Not the,
not the small things that don't seemingly add up to so much. And, um, I don't know why I shared
that with you, but, um, I just thought it was really important to share the 70 times seven
70 times seven story, because there is a limit and typically you won't pass that limit,
especially if you're keeping track. So how do we know that we have truly forgiven or been forgiven
in a situation? Anybody want to take a stab at that? How do we truly know that forgiveness has
been processed? I think, um, uh, first, um, I don't know. I mean, I'm not convinced that 490
times is the limit. Like I would, I'm imagining Peter had said like, how many times should I
forgive 490 that Jesus might've said 490 times 490,000, you know, because I know God's forgiven.
490 times. Yeah, sure. Um, that's true, but your point is still well, you know, well taken. Um,
but, um, I think, um, I I've been pretty shocked doing the hard work. It was, it was so helpful
to hear that if there's something that kind of keeps coming to mind, like, or if there's something
that kind of, um, is, is continually present, that that can be a good, a good sign. And I,
I, I I've told lots of people and lots of people have told me that forgiving is not forgetting.
And I, I understand that that's true, but I've been amazed at how in doing this work,
I've actually just forgotten about a lot of stuff. Like I was just trying to remember like, okay,
what, when I did week four, like, what were the examples of things I ever gave people for? And I
was having a really hard time remembering, which was really shocking to me. So I'm really, really,
and I think that, that for me, I've tried to,
I tried to forgive certain people so many times for things.
And I think that this chapter specifically
really helped me understand that if it kind of keeps
coming back, that I need to look more at it.
And I think I was able, instead of saying,
oh, I forgive this person for this action,
to actually calculate that cost, like you said,
and to think through, okay, so if I, you know,
what is it about that action that hurt
and what was the cost to me?
Like, did it cause me to feel worthless?
Like, you know, did it, did I feel like
it took something away from me that I should have had?
You know, and so I was really, really surprised
at how helpful, incredibly helpful it was.
Yeah, as we talk about that, that, you know,
forgiveness as it, you know,
because it does happen in layers sometimes,
typically when, what we say is that
if there's any sort of pain point
associated with a situation, a person,
a particular thing that we're dealing with
in the area of needing forgiveness,
any type of tinge or pain or just profound,
overwhelming, you know, emotion is just an indicator.
Like pain is an indicator,
just like a cut on your finger is,
it's like, hey, this needs attention, you know,
or else it's gonna be infected or bleed out or whatever.
So pain is just an indicator, it's all it is.
And so what we say is that however, whatever the pain is,
that there's another facet to deal with that.
And it's not that it's incomplete
or it's not that it's wrong or bad
because it's like, oh, I didn't do it right
or I didn't do it fully or whatever it is.
It's not about that at all.
It's just that because it happens in layers,
sometimes that's what happens
is that you might have a tinge or a pain or a thought,
you're like, ooh, yeah, that made me feel like,
I felt that, you know?
So this is why it's beautiful with the heart work
is that you just take your forgiveness template out
or maybe you've memorized it or whatever the pattern,
and you just process it without feeling.
You process it just because it's just a process.
It's a choice.
You're making a choice of your own volition to go,
you know what?
I felt that pain.
I felt it.
It's revealing something.
I don't know what it is.
I'm just gonna process it.
And because at the end of the prayer,
the last step is to ask Holy Spirit,
what is the truth about this situation?
And so then there's the revealing of like,
now that I processed the forgiveness and processed it,
now I'm gonna understand some things about the situation,
the other person, myself, whatever it is
that needs to be realized, understood.
And this is why the forgetting sometimes happens
because what happens when you know
that you've truly forgiven is when the other person,
for instance, if it's like an offensive situation
or somebody has done something to you,
you don't longer associate them with that act.
You no longer associate them with that situation
because you've released and forgiven them.
Now you may say, well, geez,
somebody does heinous things to another person.
How could that person ever forget that?
How could that person ever not associate that person
with that action or whatever?
I'm not saying that you have to like
be best friends with that person.
I'm not saying that, you know,
you need to have a relationship with that person,
but there is a spiritual process of the disconnecting
and the forgetting that you don't associate
that previous person with that action.
You see them differently.
You see them as maybe even a victim of their own situation
and why they did what they did.
You see them in their own humanity.
You see them as a child of God.
You see them as something else than what they were to you
at one particular moment.
Your perspective changes on what really happened
other than just, hey, this bad thing happened to me.
So that's how you know forgiveness is working
or that it's complete,
is when you are no longer the victim
and they are no longer the abuser.
Or maybe you were the abuser.
Maybe you were the guilty party.
Maybe you were the person.
I had to go back to my ex-wife and my situation,
I was in the midst of ministry.
My wife was the lower school principal
of the church we were working in
and she wanted a divorce and I didn't understand why.
And she wrote me the list of things why.
She literally.
wrote a list. And, um, and I still didn't really get why we
were getting divorced. And, uh, but we got divorced because it
was inevitable. And, uh, on paper, if you line up the pros
and cons and who did what and all that kind of stuff, I looked
like the good guy and she looked like the bad guy. She did, you
know, what she wasn't supposed to do. And in the context of
what we were living in and what we were doing at the time, it
was even, uh, scandalous, but it wasn't really a scandal. It
wasn't really like a salacious story. I mean, if I told you
the details, you'd be like, uh, uh, okay. So it wasn't
salacious, but it was just, you know, like, oh, that's, you
know, we don't, we don't have that here. Uh, but it wasn't, I
wasn't the non-guilty party though. After I processed what
had happened in my family, I had failed simply the fact that
we're not married anymore. Doesn't matter what you put down
on paper, like, well, who did that? Blah, blah, blah, blah.
It was a failure. And it was my responsibility, especially as
the supposed initiator, instigator or initiator of
spirituality in my home as the head quote of my household, as
the leader of my household, I failed and I had to come to
terms with that. And I had to apologize and repent that I
failed my ex-wife, even though she was the one that left, you
know? And, uh, we had a moment of reconciliation, not, not
towards marriage, but just in our personhood, our, our
believers in Christ as, as believers in the Lord, we had a
moment to be able to process that years ago in our life. And
it was important. And there, and if there was something that
needed to happen, even today, um, I'd be willing to do it and
go there and talk about it because it's just that
important to do that. And, you know, I've not been married to
her for 18 years. It's been a long time. So it's a process
guys. Forgiveness is, um, um, I guess, like I said, the closure
of this process. And the next part is, um, really stepping
into the real you, because what happens in, um, when we're
dealing with lies and we're believing with lies, so back in
week two, when we live our lives from a position of unworthiness
and our behavior is a precipitation of the lies that
we're believing about ourselves, others, and God. And we're,
we're, we're living that way. We're not living our authentic
selves. Actually, we talk about the heart. We talk about the
deception of the heart. When the heart is, um, when the inside
of you, the truth, your true self is believing lies, your
heart then is deceiving you. So your own self is literally
lying back to you saying, yeah, that's right. You know, you
should feel, um, justified to do this and you should feel bad
about that. And you should feel empowered to go and do wrong
things and justify whatever. Right. So your, your heart
literally echoes back to you, the lies that you're believing
and then begins to like lead your, so your life becomes being
led by somebody that's, that's, that's not you. So it creates a
counterfeit you that is then leading and living your life and
making decisions for you. Right? So that, so you have literally
have this person that's impersonating you that's
believing lies. It's on the inside of you. That is a wrong
identity. Once you go through the heart work and you undo the
lies, you do the repentance, confession, forgiveness, then
you have an opportunity to then begin living the real and
authentic you in Christ, who you really are. And that's what
we'll talk about next time, um, in heart work. So there's so
much, I mean, we only have an hour guys and, and, um, there's
so much to unpack. There's so much to, to go on and on and on
about, but we kind of have to keep things moving because
that's kind of like what these, these heart check ins are for,
but there's, it's an opportunity for you guys to
process some things. And I'm, I'm so glad that you guys shared
tonight. Um, it was great hearing from you because, um,
that's a lot of what this is, um, about. It's really just
kind of an opportunity to share and talk about your processing
of this, of the heart.
So, Rob, I would imagine, are you new to the heart work process in general?
To the curriculum?
Yeah.
Starting in January.
I'm like, if I look at the bar chart, I think I'm halfway through, but I haven't picked
it up in about 30 days, so.
Okay.
All right.
Yeah.
That's great.
Well, it's great meeting you and great seeing you for the first time here.
It's awesome.
Yeah.
I'm glad you were able to check in with us.
Thanks for sharing tonight.
Yeah.
It was just going to say, great to meet these guys, too, after seeing some of you on video
different times.
Yeah.
Nice to meet you, Rob.
Yeah.
Yeah, James and Joshua and Thomas, thank you guys for being here, too.
Thank you for sharing.
And if you have any questions, guys, reach out on the chat that's in the Facebook.
There's a general chat in the men's group that you can always participate in.
Once we come out, the app is being developed and our phase three people are going to be
joining it this week, so they'll be doing some more testing and ironing out some bugs.
We got a lot of bugs worked out, and so that should be a little bit easier for us to communicate
because the point of the app wasn't necessarily that the app is this great thing.
It's just the centralizing of our content and centralizing of our communication and
some of the connection points, like the meeting points, instead of it being in five or six
different private Facebook groups and being all over the place and being on a platform
over here.
The app is intended to try to centralize a lot of our content and bring it together so
we can just be a little bit more smooth with our either updating or announcing, posting
content, and so forth, all right?
So God bless, guys.
8.02, we're going to stop here.
And if you want to process some forgiveness and want to just process with the group, feel
free to do that.
You can post in there and say, hey, this is something that came to mind.
This is something I'm going to release in forgiveness, just sharing it out there.
Maybe it helps somebody else.
Maybe it's a part of your confession, whatever.
So it's all good to be able to do that and encourage you to participate in the group
and chat.
Hey, man?
Thanks for leading us, David.
Yeah.
God bless you guys.
Have a great week, and we will see you next Monday.
See you guys.
All right.