ENGLISH Dante Gebel #721 | Hard to offend
While it is true that we cannot live long without being wronged or offended, we must avoid becoming prisoners of anger and resentment, because bitterness is like a cancer that enters our body and develops deep roots, infecting our soul and relationships with the people around us. That is why we must learn to ignore minor offenses and also to forgive those who greatly offended us, even renouncing the right to hurt them back. Relationships thrive not by punishing the guilty but because the innocent bestows mercy. Let us remember that Jesus himself asked Peter to forgive his aggressor up to 70 times 7. The absence of forgiveness can cost us our hearts. It is time to forgive the aggressors in our life, even those who have not asked for it or deserve it, because life is too short not to do so.
[Music]
the king is home
the king is home
[Applause]
first service and we have a full house
and lots of people outside
he is faithful god is faithful
you may rest army of the living lord
this is the first service
and there are many people there’s many
people for the second service and for
the third thank you for being here
thank you for being faithful thank you
for not failing us
the ancient greeks
had a very fast athlete who always
won races and it surprised me because he
stood
at the finish line as the crowd screamed
not for him
but for the winner obviously he was in
second place
he had to stay there as they were
crowning the winner
so we had to be with the other runners
while
he had to hear the the speech of the
winner
and he had to go through the city to get
to his house hearing the name of the
winner
and he has always won but this time it
was someone else
they gave the winner a statue in his
honor right in the middle of the city
where he lived
he had to see it every day of his life
he had to find himself with
other man’s statue i’m assuming he was
argentinian and that’s why it bothered
him so much
and the legend says that
resentment began to take over his soul
until he could
hardly do anything else and every night
he got out of his bed and with a chisel
in the middle of the night
he would start to scratch on the winter
statue
right on the base
and every night the great marble figure
grew weaker
one night he scratched the stone too
much
with a chisel and that massive figure of
that athlete collapsed and
fell on top of him and the great marble
champion fell on the little man who had
the chisel and killed him
and the athlete had been crushed by the
very
image of the man he despised the greek
tell this story
when it comes to pride and someone will
say that the man with a chisel didn’t
die
in the instant that the statue crushed
him
it was a resentment that ended up
destroying him day by day
that thought after thought the
resentment
that’s what was really killing him it’s
just that that day
explicit death came upon him but he was
already dead
he transformed his champion soul into a
cheap
chipper someone who scrapes someone else
is
good fortune and repentance
is always contrary of resentment
forgiveness always goes against
resentment i read
that resentment is anger multiplied over
time
it’s what repeats itself it’s a horrible
deformed creature
besides being deformed it grows
it mutates it’s like a virus
and it distorts our reality it changes
us
it keeps us chained to the past
can also contaminate our environment it
intoxicates us
the word resentment expresses
what happens if the cycle continues to
repeat itself without interruption
it literally means to feel again to feel
again
that’s re-sentiment to feel again
when you say i’m resentful you’re
feeling again
you’re holding on to the past and we
live this experience
one time after another it tears off our
new skin
so the wound would never heal so
bitterness and resentment
are described through the scriptures
with many
illustrative words perhaps the most
enduring one is found in hebrews 12 15
where it says
at least anyone fell to obtain the grace
of god
that sprouting some root of bitterness
hinder him and by it many would be
contaminated
so bitterness
is also something that contaminates your
bitterness against your ex
or your mother-in-law tarnishes all of
your other relationships
no no no but i only have a problem with
my ex yeah
but the truth is the surrounding will
get to your children
it will suffocate everything it touches
bitterness is like a cancer that
develops deep roots
the metastasis of resentment spreads in
abundance
and the time will come when that
metastasis that cancer has a life of its
own
and it will be impossible to continue
right without feeling it without
nurturing it
those roots of that cancer until it’s
not something that you have
but something that has you it has you
trapped
i don’t have resentment anymore
resentment has me now
just like that loser of the statue
and besides it’s a cost that we can’t
pay
it exceeds our emotional budget now
i am aware that
i’m not minimizing what people have done
to us in the past
you can’t live in this world way too
long without being aggravated without
being hurt or without being offended
live long enough and you will get
aggravated hurt and offended
no one can say i don’t remember ever
being offended once
come on we’ve all been in that stage of
life
and in this christian journey
i have experienced many people telling
me the ways that they were
hurt mistreated how they were offended
and i’ve heard stories of pain and
betrayal that are
very hard and sometimes we underestimate
the cost
of experiencing a relationship that’s
breaking
you might think that’s it it’s over the
relationship is gone
it’s like they changed their social
status but no
relational failures rob us from our
energy
it drains out our anointing and the
worst of all
is that we put when we’re angry we put
someone in a prison in our heart and
then we’re in charge of guarding the
door so they could never leave
i always share the story that a former
prisoner used to say
that the guard is always more confined
than the prisoner
because the guard spends his entire
day in a small cell and a prisoner
has more space to walk the prisoner can
go out for a walk but the guard has to
be alert
the prisoner can rest the guard can
never sleep
you might say yeah but the guard gets to
go home at night
yeah but the prison guard of resentment
will
never go home because he is homeless
he’s constantly living and breathing
resentment and throughout these years
i’ve developed with lots of effort
three three categories
in my mind to catalog those who offend
me
or offend us the first so that we can
start to get deep into what god has for
us today
the first category is minor offenses
when we say yeah he offended me but
there are minor offenses
and sometimes in this category the
offended person
loses perspective and goes into a victim
mode
i’m sure you know someone who’s a victim
mode person
the world is against me the whole world
defends them
so let’s agree because there are people
who are offended by
everything they’re made of crystal of
glass
one time a woman told me with tears in
her eyes how
terrible how terribly offended she was
with her husband i hate him
he humiliated me she shared that she had
mopped the floor
waxed the floor and her husband dropped
some rice on the floor
i cleaned like a slave all day so that
this punk would come he doesn’t care in
two minutes he destroyed it all
he ruined it he doesn’t care that i’ve
been scrubbing all day long
it’s only rice that’s why you’re
crucifying your husband
i said really
[Laughter]
really you’re gonna make him sleep on
the couch for that
really so most of the offenses
are usually childish the majority
i’m gonna go to deeper ones some more
serious ones but they’re childish
majority
they’re people who drowned in a glass of
water
there are fences that should fly off of
our radar
but for some reason certain people are
unhinged
they quantify it way too much we have to
choose what battles
we’re going to fight and which battles
are below our league
first corinthians chapter 13 verse 5
says
whoever wants to be a follower of christ
should not be people who get
easily angry another version says
do not get irritated easily
whoever wants to follow jesus can’t get
irritated for any dumb thing
so you gotta ignore minor offenses and
just move on
internet is not reality having the
correct perspective of offenses
category uh stupidity minor stupidities
which simplifies our life
and when a pebble crosses our path we
don’t have to make it
like a big mountain it’s just a pebble
the fences category minor stupidity
do a good job bringing out to the
surface our real state of character
what’s really underneath the makeup or
what’s
underneath our tight clothes and skinny
jeans
it doesn’t happen here but because we’re
people
being watched by others around the world
you see there’s a lady who understands
and when we get irritated easily
amen or when i understand you lady
or when we oversize the fence
well we know it’s just something
childish it’s something dumb
i have to just let it go
so when i behave like a jerk in my case
i’m not being ironic but when i do
behave like a jerk
i try to take a deep breath and i speak
my own version
of the ten words of christ on the cross
father
forgive me because i don’t know what i’m
doing
i have health i work i have a family
i have a future i can breathe i can
take a warm shower whenever i want messy
is from argentina look at the many
reasons
that i have and i’m getting angry
because someone said something to me
really
makes us respond in such a
disproportionate way
and i discover the reasons that i’m
ashamed to admit
my ego was hurt my defects were exposed
or i thought i had the right to live a
life without problems
i never thought there would be people
who don’t like me when this happens i
shift the offender’s focus to myself i
don’t blame others
why did they did this to me no i think
why am i hurt why am i offended and i
investigate
what area in my life requires more work
which should improve if i’m easily
offended
it’s a very clear indicator that i’m
exhausted
my tank is empty and i need to pray more
i need to recharge my emotional tank
when you have your emotional tank full
minor irritations of life
lose their power it doesn’t affect us
we’re like seals slippery skin it
doesn’t steal us from our emotional
energy or time it doesn’t take away
our our anointing our relational
world travels lighter and lighter
that’s the category of minor offenses
the second category
are justified grievances i know
someone’s thinking
at this stage hold on mine isn’t a joke
well
these increases are more complex
they require diagnosis therapy it
happens to us all
sooner or later someone offends us and
it’s justified
we all deal with difficult people in our
lives everyone does in fact
difficult people i have the strategy to
think that they’re distributed
around the world so we would bump into
two or three per day the other day i
told someone if at the end of the day
you didn’t find the third
one look at yourself in the mirror it’s
you
[Laughter]
the people around us they reveal our
character
what we’re really made of other people
show what they have inside
i say this money changes no one
money shows how the person really was
the thing is when they were poor no one
really cared but now that they have
money to just show their true character
money just exposes us the way we really
are
same thing happens with the rest of life
difficult people
they don’t change us they expose us if
we need to develop the art of
forgiveness
well the challenge will be dealing with
someone who is difficult to bear
don’t look at the person that’s at your
right or at your left it’s just a
metaphor
but just how lifting weights strengthens
our muscles
and it also strengthens the heart well
difficult people strengthen our capacity
to love our capacity to build our
character
and if god had to get rid of all the
difficult people in the world we’d all
disappear
no one is here if you had to eliminate
all those
with imperfections ugliness no one is
here
we’re all gone
likewise we’re always wanting god
to give us a life free of difficult
people
but there are many people in the bible
who had
a difficult person to put up with how
about
moses had pharaoh elijah had jezebel
esther had heyman jacob had layman david
had saul even
john the baptist had herod and jesus had
judas
to give you a word of encouragement at
this stage
the most likely is that you’re the
difficult person to bear
no we all thought about someone else
right
but who knows maybe you’re the person
who god puts next to someone to mow that
person’s character
huh we’re always invigorated or
exhausted in every interaction with
someone
so when we relate ourselves with someone
in a deeper level
deeper than words and it’s an inter
interaction with other people it’s an
emotional exchange
you know some people can give you energy
in a good way they can deepen your
strength
increase your happiness bring out the
best of us
you have no idea how great it is to
speak with him and her
others they consume your life
they suck at the blood in you like a
vampire
right
they make us be defensive or get
depressed
this is something interesting many
studies have been carried out on what it
is that makes us like someone
and others that we don’t like you know
like bubble
gum you can’t swallow them
you just chew on them that’s the way it
is with me
and the majority of people but what
attracts us or what repels us
when someone really doesn’t fit in with
your character
in additional to physical attractiveness
their iq their ability their personality
if you’re gonna like someone or not
it’s basically if we’re likeable or not
if we like them they’ll like us now
if we don’t like them we are never ever
ever ever gonna like them
if there’s one person that i never liked
someone who i hate being around but i
hear that he says something good about
me
hey how about that i knew the guy was
smart deep down inside
i knew he knew how to appreciate what’s
good i’ll give him another chance
or a person can be wonderful
in any other way but
their dislike of us changes our
perception oh
so he doesn’t like me what do you say no
no he said he didn’t like you that much
maybe because he doesn’t know you
oh no no i’m not offended at all
[Laughter]
i never really liked that toothpick
legged lady
you can tell she’s as sour as a lemon
i love her i love her in the lord
and god’s not like that at all because
god loves people who love him
but he also loves people who don’t love
him
the person who is about to die barely
remembers the lord
just like that thief that was crucified
next to jesus remember
jesus said you have heard it was said an
eye for an eye
and a tooth for a tooth but i tell you
if someone slaps you on the right cheek
turn the other also to him if someone
slaps you on the right side then give
the left
now the statement eye for an eye or as
we say
in the neighborhood just stand at your
door and wait for the corpse of your
enemy to pass by
pharisees chapter four verse three eye
for an eye
comes from the hebrew scriptures and
although it sounds
harsh and hard it’s actually
a breakthrough in the ancient legal
world eye for an eye when there were no
police officers no constitution
no bill of rights powerful people
could have killed someone because of
some little damage
the gardner didn’t do a good job yeah
tear off an eye
that’s why the law limited the
retribution
by teaching proportional justice based
on the law of retaliation
now nevertheless this leaves us with a
problem
because my instinct is that if someone
hurts me
i’m gonna hurt them worse remember when
you were a kid
your brother would hate you how would
you hit him back come on it was always
as double as hard
right no no mercy at all
a group of individuals was organized
into pairs of half
and people received pressure on their
finger
and then the other half were instructed
to insert the same amount of pressure
on the other person’s finger and when it
was their turn they always gave
more pain than what they really received
always
eye for an eye plus a little extra so
you would never ever
dare to hit me again it’s always an eye
for an eye and a little bit more
an eye and a half just to be fair now
jesus comes and gives us another option
a clue to understand comes from the
mention of the right cheek
listen to this society in the days of
jesus
was built on shame and honor all right
that’s the way it was so the left hand
was considered
unclean all right keep this in mind
the left hand was considered unclean
why it wasn’t used to eat it wasn’t used
for anything
much less to hit that’s why
soldiers had to be right-handed the left
hand was basically
two you know when you go to that
luxurious bathroom that we have now
in river arena you would use the left
hand at one moment
i’m not gonna explain more because i
know you understood and if you didn’t
someone else is gonna have to explain it
to you there was
no water there was no place to clean
yourself you had your left hand
so a slop should be given with a back
side of the right hand
if i were to slap you with my back hand
right back hand
what side am i going to hit you on what
do you mean the left
to hit you with the left side i have to
do this i can’t i have to hit you like
this
this was the way
this was a way to make an agreement to
someone
because the main intention wasn’t
physical harm but public shame
embarrassment a backhand slap my dad
would get over here
get over here and you would pee in your
pants
just by the way he put his arm a
backhand slap was only given to someone
who was socially inferior
like a slave or a child so when someone
offends us
what should we do everyone expects one
of the two
retaliate or just be a coward jesus says
a third option give the other cheek so
our enemy can’t give us a backhand slap
on our left cheek
so he either has to go he remembers
what he cleaned with that hand he can’t
hit
he either has to fight with us as an
equal which he doesn’t want to
or he has to find a non-violent way to
resolve the conflict
when he puts the other cheek it’s not
letting you be hit again
it’s stopping it when they say dante
you’re such an arrogant argentinian
and i say that’s because you don’t know
every other defect i have
and when i say it they’re not ready for
that
they’re not ready for that type of
reaction it’s like
they weren’t expecting it so they don’t
know really what to say anymore
they’re not ready people aren’t ready
for the other cheek
they’re ready for a worse insult
you’re at a red light and you get
distracted
not by watching your cell phone but
maybe reading the scriptures
hey hold on a minute or you can go god
bless you
they’re not ready for that when a
chinese driver passes by you say god
bless you
and he curses me in their language
it doesn’t matter jesus presents us
another case worthy of study
if someone forces you to carry their
burden for
one kilometer take it for 2.
the people listening understood this
situation because roman soldiers were
allowed to force jews
right they were the captive people
remember
the roman government was a de facto
government
it was a dictatorship and the jews were
forced to carry
their backpacks for a kilometer this
represents the kind of people who use us
i’m sure you’ve been used before but
used by god be used by people in a bad
way
my ex used me my boss used me
they used me and they didn’t even say
thank you
i felt like a thing an object not a
person what do we do in that situation
well jesus invites us to see our enemy
as a human being
that roman soldier is a young guy who
has a mom and a dad
one day he was born in italy in rome and
they forced them to go
to be part of a military army he wasn’t
a war he didn’t declare
it was caesar who did it everything he
receives
every day is local hostility he’s being
insulted every time he passes by
so this is the idea you complete your
kilometer by law and then look at them
in the eye
and say hey you can say hey
hey you look tired let me carry this a
little bit more
this leaves a guy speechless because
everyone does what they’re only asked to
otherwise if they don’t they’re going to
go to jail for it who sends a tip to the
irs
or a fip in argentina who says hey
i paid my taxes but i’m gonna give you a
tip
you work so much who does that
we try to pay less not more what happens
is that when someone is difficult for us
to deal with
we prefer to think of that person as
someone who
we really just can’t put up with not
like someone who’s a real person
who has their own story when i was a kid
and i saw how my dad would kick the dog
my dad would walk and every animal that
would bump into him would have to fly
away
chickens cats dogs
i couldn’t believe it never a word of
affection
he never cares a cat why did i think he
was going to caress me
you would never vaccinate the dog why me
what a bitter guy i thought what a cold
german because my dad’s german he was
german
of all the fathers of the world this is
the nazis that i got
a nazi
now as an adult i came to find
out when he was 13 years old around
there
his stepfather
was beating him up to death
he would beat him up he took him out of
school
send him together the harvest under the
frost
under the rain in the cold winter
and when his stepfather came home he
hated
my dad he would just beat him up they
wouldn’t take him to the hospital
there’s no one to call you couldn’t call
the police
i found out he never received a hug in
his life
he never received a birthday gift ever
in his life he would always say why do
you want to celebrate your birthday you
think you’re the only one
who was born today no but i’m your son i
don’t know about that
and he always tells me that he had a
life
he didn’t just kick cats he had lots of
traumas
serious problems he had a hard past
like someone once said sometimes we
don’t want a little story of behind who
we hate
because when you start to understand
what they went through you stop hating
them
i hope i never get to know my enemy
because otherwise i can’t hate them
anymore
when we don’t know people they’re a
monster to us but the problem is that
we’re all difficult people
once i discovered by accident i heard a
conversation
that i found out that a friend of mine
was saying to another friend of mine
that it was difficult to work with me
you know you know how hard it is to work
with dante
it’s horrible he wasn’t just any old
person
a friend of mine was telling another
friend that i was like a vampire sucking
the blood out of everyone around me
it was like a bomb to me really
i’m a difficult guy i’m nicer than pope
john paul ii
me it’s a strange feeling when we
discover
that we don’t urinate holy water that we
are unbearable to other people
and the third category are the fences
that destroy our lives
those offenses that change lives they’re
like the 9 11’s of our
offenses and not everyone’s going to
experience this type of
grievances infidelity sexual abuse
incest rape
someone who killed your son in an
accident
you was a drunk driver and he killed
your only daughter
all your life you’re gonna say i’m never
gonna guide my daughter to the altar
to get married i’m never gonna see her
get her driver’s license
she spent all of her savings in this bad
habit
she cheated on me he cheated on me
she broke our promise he’s selfish
and i’m not gonna offer you trivial
solutions to such
pain but a normal heart will seek
vengeance
there’s a time for justice if the
offense has legal implications
but forgiving things like this is not an
easy job so believe me
it means that we can acknowledge the
damage but we have to let go of the
other person
we have to admit that there’s a damage
go through the morning
but let the person go let them free
not because they need it but because we
need it otherwise
that thirst for justice never ends
and if i need a different kind of heart
to forgive
so be it so forgiveness starts
when we start to understand our own sins
that’s when we start to understand what
jesus said to one of his disciples
concerning a prostitute i tell you that
many of our sins
are forgiven because she has shown much
love
a person who has forgiven little shows
little love
you have to feel very forgiving to be
able to forgive that type of offense
it’s very difficult to offer forgiveness
when we’re aware of
how much we have been forgiven
when we’re not aware of it it’s very
difficult just like hiv
it destroys the physical immune system
well bitterness destroys the emotional
immune system
and also spiritual it destroys us
it’s an implosion it ends up killing us
from the inside
it’s poison that enters our organism
nothing who offended us not in your ex
the fences are harmful toxic substances
worse than covid yesterday i read that
this pandemic left
sixty percent of people around the world
depressed
clinically depressed not sad
more than half the world is depressed
and we know what the definition the
clinical definition of depression is
inward oriented anger
so the body has only a certain amount of
emotional energy available per day
we use it well or we use it bad
and we live exhausted all day it doesn’t
matter how long you sleep
because you’re having inner anger so
bitterness consumes our limited reserve
of energy to create
to project to have new ideas
and relationships do not prosper by
punishing the guilty
relationships if they prosper it’s
because we gave mercy right
when we give mercy that’s when we can
prosper i wouldn’t share the story the
two men were going through
the jungles of burma and they came to a
very
little lagoon very dirty they both came
out and when they came out one was
covered in leeches
and desperately began to tear the the
leeches from his body
and the veteran told him if you pull
them suddenly
a part of the insect will remain under
your skin and the wound will become
infected
you need to take a bomb bath as soon as
possible
so once you submerge yourself in the
bath the leeches will release their
hooks and you will be free
well resentment is like that leech it
gets into your heart
you can’t pull that out
it’s going to get worse if you do those
feelings
have the hooks in your life you need to
submerge yourself in the bomb of god’s
grace
you need to leave this place free from
those leeches because if you can’t
forgive me
it’s like you carrying me on your back
all day long carrying your mother-in-law
on your back all day long she goes
wherever you
go she sleeps with you in your bed
take away that mental image of your
mother-in-law
sleeping in underwear oh satan but there
she is
how many people can we carry on our back
so traveling lightly is an art when we
forgive someone
we’re dancing to the rhythm of the
heartbeat of god
when we forgive someone we can hear boom
dancing literally to the heartbeat of
the lord
and that’s awesome and god created human
beings
in his image so we can be friends so
that we can be companions
buddies colleagues comrades
but soon we learn to live how to enemies
and of all the wonders that god created
human beings have added something from
our factory revenge
for every wound there must be an act of
vengeance
in genesis there’s a character named
lamech
i thought this message was going to be
titled
the lav lamech but i thought people were
going to attack me more than what they
often do
so i changed it but in the biblical
context it said
that he took this concept to the maximum
extreme
genesis 4 23 says lamech said to his
woman
i killed a man for hurting me and a
young man for hitting me
if cain will be avenged seven times then
lamech will be avenged
70 times seven that’s where we get this
phrase
it’s like saying it’s infinite that’s
the law of lamech
if someone hurts me then i have the
obligation to pay back
so god who created the heavens and the
earth in six days he had to create
something else after the fall
he invented a spiritual surgery
that can remove what’s poisonous from
the heart and that’s called
forgiveness it’s the last of the best
gifts to the human race
forgiveness peter one day approaches
jesus
i’m sure he was hispanic and he said
someone hurt me how many times do i have
to forgive him
seven times most likely peter
expected jesus to say that he was
very magnanimous and that he was going
way beyond his duty because rabbis had
to do this
he just adds a little bit more until
seven
imagine peter’s reaction when instead of
praising him
he told him that he had to at least 500
times do it more
not up to seven but 70 times seven
why was he using this number well he was
nullifying cancelling that law
of lamech jesus said you’re going to
have to forgive 70 times
7. and there’s another reason why jesus
uses such a large number
because forgiveness is kind of like
breathing count how many ch
how many times you breathe you drive
yourself crazy
forgiveness has to be a way of life
how many times do we forgive i don’t
know try to consider it like
how many times you breathe a day
inhale and exhale so god developed a new
possibility to face betrayal and pain
you’re in debt and i pay with the cross
if you’re in death then i pay with a
cross
that’s wonderful someone needs to say
amen right
that’s why the cross
that’s why the cross is at the very
heart of christianity
it shows the heart of god but we have to
understand
what forgiveness is not
forgiveness is not excusing yourself
to excuse someone it’s like for example
when there’s circumstances
that guide our conduct for example we
forgive
a future father who’s driving fast on
the freeway because his woman is about
to give birth
the police officer says what are you
doing and you say
my wife’s about to give birth don’t
worry then
we’ll forgive someone who’s in the
supermarket and who hits you by accident
we forgive or we apologize
to an eight-year-old who’s making weird
noises because they’re eight-year-olds
right that’s what they do
people say to understand everything is
to forgive everything
no that’s wrong forgiveness is precisely
what we need
when there is no good reason to explain
why someone did what they did
why are you putting a pee inside your
brother’s nose
uh you have to forgive him
it’s basically eliminating the need to
forgive
when an action is explainable there’s no
need for forgiveness why did you do this
i didn’t realize it i’m sorry
oh i feel asleep pastor there’s someone
who always says this to me
well of course you have to forgive her
forgiving
isn’t forgetting all it takes to forget
is to have a bad memory
alzheimer’s i forget where i leave my
car keys where i parked
when it’s my mother-in-law’s birthday
now that doesn’t mean that i have a
noble soul
oh dante forgets everything no i’m just
acting according to my age
i’m going to say one day do you know
where my teeth are
some offenses are serious
and they can hide out of fear or trauma
we might say i already forgot about it
but we did it it’s still there
it wasn’t forgiven the authors of the
scriptures sometimes use the language of
forgetfulness to describe the way in
which god acts with respect to our sins
but that doesn’t mean that god has
problems with alzheimer’s
it means that all of our sins lose their
importance
in our relationship with god so
forgiveness is precisely what we need
when we cannot forget
when i forget i’m gonna forgive that’s
not forgiving
forgiving is what you do when you can’t
forget
why did you do this i don’t know that’s
when you have to forgive
when we justify we don’t need that when
someone says i’m sorry
and they explain why it’s not
forgiveness
i’m sorry forgive me i was clumsy the
thing is
sometimes you do the same thing to me
last time you broke the glass and i
didn’t say anything
forgiving isn’t the same that’s
reconciling
it’s something we all need to know
because there’s some people who think
that forgiving someone means that we
have to
be together with that person again no
matter what happens
the wife has to return to that beast who
beats on her
how can you go back to someone who’s
beating up on you
or hire that employee that stole from
you forgiveness and reconciliation are
two
two different things reconciliation
requires that whoever
hurts us should be sorry for the evil
they did against us and want to try
all over forgiveness takes place in our
hearts not in theirs
it can even be granted when people don’t
deserve or don’t even ask for
forgiveness
i knew someone who forgave his father
after 30 years a father had died
i forgave my father what did you say no
he died 30 years ago but i barely
forgave him
i don’t even need him to be alive so to
finish i’m going to tell you
what forgiveness is
it’s not an excuse it’s not forgetting
it’s not reconciliation but what it is
the first stage of forgiveness is the
decision to not hurt the person who hurt
us
it’s the law of jesus when i forgive
i give up the right to vengeance it’s
very difficult
even though you have deliberately
offended me i suspend the law of revenge
i refrain from responding with
retaliation
i’m not gonna do it i’m not gonna act
according to my desire to suffer to see
you suffer
when i forgive you i release you from
that small present that i built in my
mind and in my heart
to keep you in prison for life i stop
imagining that they’re deporting you and
you’re dressed in orange
that you get a zit right in your butt
cheek and every time you sit down it
would hurt
right and there’s nothing you can do to
take it away
and it’s difficult because revenge is a
natural obsession
of a wounded soul the problem with
revenge is that there’s
no two people right they can weigh pain
the same way
when will the palestines right every get
revenge of the israelites
right or america with the chivas or boca
and river
i read the story of a medical student
who in 2013
someone fell in love with the girl he
liked and he found out who the guy was
and he posted on his social media that
famous phrase
said by the actor liam neeson in the
movie
taken you know the one where they kidnap
his daughter
and he wrote this on the guy’s profile
this is a medical student
in the university of lycaster in the uk
he said
i don’t know who you are i don’t know
what you want
if you’re looking for a ransom i can
tell you i don’t have money
but what i do have are a very particular
set of skills
skills i have acquired over a very long
career skills that make me a nightmare
for people like you
so i will find you i will look for you
and i will kill you
[Laughter]
there you go i’ll give it to you so you
can tweet it
he never thought this would bring him so
many problems to his career
so abandoning vengeance doesn’t mean
abandoning justice
even though the victim of a kidnapper
forgives
him he still needs to pay his debt with
society
same thing with someone who steals so
justice
includes the search for equity revenge
is the desire to punish you can’t do
this
so the next step is i’m going to resign
to vengeance the next step
is a new way of feeling towards that
person one of the things that happened
to us
when they hurt us deeply when we look at
the person who offended us
we don’t look at the person we look at
the fence
we don’t see the person we look at the
fence the wound
and when we hold on to the decision to
not forgive another person
we tend to believe only bad things about
them
we want to think about that person only
in terms of the damage that they have
caused us
but when we forgive we rediscover the
humanity
of the one who offended us the person is
no longer limited to being
a dead of pain without collection
just like i said look at them as a
father a mother
who make mistakes maybe they feel lonely
maybe they’re hurt maybe they’re weak or
clumsy
like me so you have to start to see the
person
and not the fans
to get to the third stage which is
when we long good for the other person
now that’s a different level
we want them to have a good life we no
longer have the hope that their
their car will break down that their
beer belly would grow
more that the woman’s body parts would
fall to the ground
under the act of gravity yeah
i would recommend you talking to that
lady over there
good things to happen i said for things
to fall like the law of gravity and she
started to laugh
you want good things to happen to that
person now we have that genuine hope
that everything is gonna be well between
them and god
i’m talking about your ex the man who
cheated on you
there’s a level where god says you need
to get to that level where you have to
pray for them to have a good
life it doesn’t happen easily
sometimes we’re gonna have some
flashbacks some moments where we’d like
to hear
you know that they also got cheated on
with their new spouse that their cat
committed suicide
but then you go back to the right path
that means that our heart is on the
correct path
and when we wish good things for someone
who offended us
that’s when we can be sure that the
great forgiver has been working in our
hearts
and you always have to try to forgive
those who offended us
even though they’re not going to ask for
forgiveness or deserve it
it’s the best way to live
for you to offend me i have to give you
permission
you can insult me all you want but i’m
not going to get offended i don’t give
you that permission
if we don’t give them permission they
can say whatever they want and
everything’s just gonna slip away
if we don’t give them permission no one
can reach our heart
they can insult us but it orbits all
around us
the aggressors are in the milky way and
we’re somewhere else
in another galaxy there are no human
beings more unhappy than those who never
forgive
but when the miracle of forgiveness
occurs in the best of all cases
it makes a broken relationship heal and
it’s very
possible that you may have been
suffering through this for years
because that person betrayed you
or maybe because you are at war with
someone that you left for so long
and you can’t even remember the last
time you spoke good about them
god tells you you need to forgive them
every time they hurt you
and reconcile if we can because life is
too
short to live that way with this
pandemic we have to learn this
there’s no time to be bitter resentful
and besides we’re not going to get
another chance
if we don’t forget we’re going to carry
our berlin that’s going to crush our
spirit
taking away everything that’s ours our
energy every day that passes by we’re
going to get colder
human beings tend to think we can
receive god’s forgiveness without having
to forgive others
that god’s going to forgive me for
everything but jesus says
forgive us our debt as we also forgive
our debtors
so if you commit a mistake a lot and you
expect god to forgive you but you’re not
forgiving others
that word has to terrify you
give us our bread every day that’s nice
our father what in heaven hallowed be
thy name that’s great
the only hard part is forgive us our
debt
as we forgive our debtors
it doesn’t matter what they did to you
your debt is not going to be forgiven if
you don’t forgive others
it’s hard it’s unfair
for many of us who went through life
with wounds
we want those people who made us suffer
to know what it feels like to suffer
and sometimes we don’t even want to what
do you mean i have to pray for them to
have a good life
there’s only one thing harder to forgive
someone who you don’t want to
and it’s not forgiving them because the
absence
of forgiveness counts our emotional
budget
it affects our heart licking our wounds
and savoring the pain that we’re gonna
do
in return can seem like a banquet fit
for a king but later it turns out
it’s nothing more than just a skeleton
in a party and that skeleton is ours
that skeleton in that party is us at
first we have resentment
but then in the end the resentment has
us
we’re the ones who are prisoners i think
that the condemnation of those who don’t
forgive begins already here on earth
because bitterness and coldness of the
heart
are much stronger than any iron bar
and not forgiving is like taking a rat
killing poison and expecting the rat to
die
right so we hold on to resentment and
bitterness because we
want to hurt that rat just like that
proverb says
filthy rat creeping animal
you scum of life badly done
infra human specter of hell
[Music]
because a creeping bug even being the
most cursed
compared to you is still too small
but after that resentment has been
infected enough we discovered that the
rat
was us
don’t forgive and your anger will be
coming to your burden don’t forgive and
little by little you’re going to lose
your laughter
don’t forgive and you’re never going to
trust in anyone again
don’t forgive and bitterness will take
compassion out of your heart
slowly don’t forgive and that little
grudge
that you’re feeding will become a bigger
rat
and it’s gonna smell even if you think
you can hide it from
everyone you know in time the monster
will start to be seen
the lack of forgiveness is like bad
breath everyone can smell it except the
one who has it
and everything that’s going to be left
of being a person
it’s just gonna be hostility hatred
and that bitterness is going to spread i
read the story
described in a book by don colbert he’s
a christian doctor
and he explains this he says that the
way the body interprets toxic emotions
such as resentment
bitterness stress when stress is
constant
the immune system becomes overloaded
so the immune system not only attacks
bacteria
and viruses it also attacks healthy
cells
and at the end it produces inflammatory
autoimmune diseases such as
lupus so he tells the story of a woman
in her 40s
who came to her who came to his office
hoping to find relief for
some mild arthritis pain in her hand
and he prescribed an anti-inflammatory
but her blood test confirmed that she
had
a serious type of arthritis so she was
referred to a specialist to receive
care she shared that she was in a
difficult time
stressful time coming out of a painful
divorce
when she mentioned the name of her
ex-husband
her face changed dramatically like if it
was a monster
her face twisted says don colbert
with deep anger she said how much she
hated her husband how she wanted him to
die
not a calm death she wanted him to die
the worst type of death possible i want
him to suffer
i want him to feel more pain than what
he made me feel
the doctor said rarely have i ever seen
someone with so much pain and hatred
it was really transforming her body
it was giving her arthritis
certainly there were reasons to be
bitter i’m not redeeming the guy
but reasons don’t produce bitterness
what produces bitterness is her attitude
the attitude do we have towards the
people that offend us
a couple of weeks ago
days ago my old man
he left to go to eternity he’s been here
and i told many times like i told you
just a while ago he was a difficult guy
huh
i loved him a lot i still do but he was
a
very difficult man
it’s not because of a matter of age when
he was
40 i was barely born i grew up
seeing his his fingers stiff
full of calluses you know wounded with
hammers
sand paper nails but his heart
also seemed to have the heart of a
carpenter
and my father could never show me
affection
to his children his grandchildren i
don’t ever remember
a hug from him he said he loved me but
he couldn’t show it
and i was surprised that he would hug
strangers but he was
dying of shame to hug a son or a
grandson
in fact and no other family member
visited him in his last three years
i was his only guest every time i would
see him
no grandchildren no nephews no other
relative
saw him throughout these last three
years because he didn’t know how to sow
that effect
that’s later you know received as a
harvest
organically in the future
when my grandmother used to live the oma
she excused him saying your father was
raised
like the way they were raised back in
the day
that meant never hugging never showing
affection
and a couple of years ago
and one last trip i made to argentina he
went to go see me at luna park stadium
in buenos aires where i was giving a
conference
and when i realized the conference and i
go
to my green room i didn’t realize that
he was going to make the first step i
knew it
so in the green room i looked up in the
eyes and i said dad
i was going to say say i’m sorry i said
dad
forgive me you had me when you were
an old man and i know it wasn’t easy to
raise me
and i’m aware that you had a difficult
life too i’ve heard it many times
and that german man who never ever
hugged me
hugged me and grabbed me for the first
time around my neck
and it seemed like he was never gonna
let me go and my photographer
took the moment took a picture of the
moment
like if it was a he said
this is like a haley’s comic it happens
every 70 years he took a picture quickly
and i said i love you dad and i don’t
want you to die without you knowing it
and he
i don’t know how to show my feelings you
know
i’m a rude man but i’m proud of you
and we gave each other an eternal hug i
thanked him for what
he did in my life i told him there was
no pending accounts between us
and that was the first time i hugged him
and the last time that i could have a
conversation with him
and that day a door opened
in that prison cell they went
two hearts of stone melted in buenos
aires
two human beings who have lived as
strangers
and despite them being you know strange
as they were father and son
and i’d like to think that that helped
me
this happened two weeks ago where he
passed away
i’m sure he left calm
knowing that he was able to hug at least
his youngest son
even though he did it beyond the age of
90.
we said goodbye to each other letting us
go
he raised his thumb he gave me a thumbs
up no hard feelings
that’s why i’m sure it’s never too late
my friend
i’m thankful i didn’t have to say words
to a coffin or to kiss a cold forehead
instead of a warm cheek i’m thankful
i didn’t have to speak to a gravestone
i have nothing more to say
and i can give you a word of advice even
though you’re not asking for it
a suitcase loaded with resentment will
take you further than what you wanted
it will keep you way longer than what
you plan to stay
and it’s going to cost you more than
what you ever thought you would pay and
it’s not worth it
it’s not worth it because at the end of
the day
life passes by fast and resentment is a
burden
that other people don’t even know that
we have that’s why to all those who are
watching us from around the world
we’re back home and i knew on behalf of
the lord
that the first sermon had to do
with leaving our burdens here starting
this
sort of post-pandemic even though it’s
not over in many parts around the world
to start it in a light way make a list
of forgiveness
first of all forgive god not because god
committed a mistake
but because we got angry with him
[Music]
when he could have intervened and he
didn’t
when we prayed for divine healing
and nevertheless that disease took away
the person we were praying for
because we prayed in faith within a
hospital wall but our hope
was crushed as we walked in the cemetery
we got angry with god and we’ve been
taking this burning for years
there are things that god doesn’t owe
you or me an explanation
we’re going to understand when we’re
with him secondly
maybe a father a mother whether they’re
dead or
alive if you can’t hug them like i did
with my dad
at least let them go
let your heart have peace not their
heart
your heart because they didn’t raise you
the way you wanted because
they didn’t validate you the majority of
us at least my generation
we didn’t have psychologists or
pediatricians
the psychologist was a flip-flop a belt
a leather belt and we went through life
hurt wounded thinking that we didn’t
have
the best childhood the best parents
many of them lived alone
and i always mentioned that that feeling
of being an orphan is more tolerable if
your father or mother
are dead but it’s very hard when your
father
lives right next to you and even like
this you still feel like an orphan
let’s forgive them let’s let them go
for giving an ex an ex-spouse
who offended you who hurt you
you gave them their trust and confidence
and they played with you
and you’re gonna live your life thinking
you know what
that pain comes images comes to my mind
of how i invested my
life because when you get divorced not
only do you let go
in acts but your dreams your projects
die
vacations christmases and so forth
it’s like someone takes your secrets to
someone else
that that secret is gonna go to bed with
some other woman or other man
and that causes pain in your soul it’s
not fixed by saying
stay with me i forgive him i forgive him
it’s a it’s a lifestyle
to start to forgive to later pray so
they would have a good life
let’s forgive our teachers a tutor
a pastor a leader some priest a rabbi i
don’t know
someone who you thought they were your
spiritual leader and they abused
your confidence you opened your heart to
them and one day
they failed because leaders men women
those who have the divine providence of
transmitting god’s word
are humans we commit mistakes of course
we are
but that’s not your your case don’t
carry me on your back
let go any spiritual leader that
offended you let’s forgive
a friend
any person that comes to your mind right
now just let them go in peace
imagine that you’re gonna hug someone
and say it’s all forgiven
i give you no more permission to offend
me i’m in a different galaxy
if you say that the relationship is is
impossible to reconcile well okay
and finally let’s forgive ourselves
for that mistake for that wrong decision
for that misfortune it’s hard to offend
the abortion the divorce
live long enough and you’re gonna offend
someone
the thing is we can’t forgive ourselves
and we punish ourselves we self-harm
ourselves
we have to let go of ourselves we’re
people in the process
of recovering we can’t say that’s who i
am
i’m gonna try to be better or not but
there’s an age where you need to say
enough i’m gonna stop blaming myself for
what happened i did what i could
just like my dad said i’m a rude man
i only have fourth grade education i did
what i could my son
to say that to me he had to forgive
himself
he had to make a balance of his life a
scale of his life and say
this is all i could have done and that’s
where you start to rebuild
unforgiveness so let’s forgive and let’s
say
lord today i want to leave free in this
first sunday
post-pandemic and this month of june
we’re leaving free
and if you’re here for the first time
you’re gonna leave free
on stand up and give the greatest round
of applause
to the lord of lords to the king of
kings
if that round of applause is because god
spoke to you it’s gonna
sound louder
i invite you to receive jesus in your
heart it doesn’t matter if you’re
catholic
atheist jehovah witness a jew
it doesn’t matter what religion the lord
says to tell you that today
is that day where you can say lord
forgive me
come into my life clean my heart
write down my name in the book of life
and starting from there on everything
will be made new
i know you’re going to leave as light as
a feather you’re going to have a great
sunday
you’re going to say it was worth the
effort to the thousands of people
watching us
on tv and you were with us throughout
the entire pandemic thank you for being
with us
we bless you thank you for being strong
and firm
here we are with our army of the living
lord see you soon god bless you all
see you all people soon bye-bye
[Applause]
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oh
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oh
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foreign
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is
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foreign
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foreign
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oh
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it is the motto
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