Encouragement 101

In the last week I've really been made aware of the value of encouragement and of the large number of people who desperately need it. There are two people in my personal life who are in crisis and I answered a call for help from one of my facebook friends who posted a "lament" about bad things happening to a friend of hers. I have a good friend who is far from home and his support group, and is drowning in the struggle to find and keep a job and establish himself in a new community. The past 24 hours have found me trying to figure out how to encourage him - man to man.

My answer to most of these types of questions is to get back to basics. So, this morning I cracked open the Good Book and started thumbing my way through the New Testament. I wonder how many men are like me - plenty familiar with the front half of the New Testament but not so much with the back half. There's some great stuff back there! The Apostle Paul does a lot of encouraging through letters to pastors in the middle part of the New Testament. His letters to the Philippians, Titus, Timothy, and the Hebrews are all about encouragement and motivation. In my back to basics philosophy, you can not only receive encouragement from these books of the Bible but you can also take a lesson in the how to's of encouragement as well. If there's someone in your life that has really hit a rough stretch of road in life and needs some propping up, this is where you figure out how to do it. Most of these books are not a long read - some of them can be read in just a few minutes.

I am by no means an expert in encouragement. Yet, I think there's a right way and a wrong way to encourage someone. In my efforts to encourage my friend I'm taking some cues from the way Paul writes his letters and I've found a few things that might help you if you're in the same boat.

1. The template.
   I've been accused of being very analytical and left brained, rigidly conforming to templates for my actions and reactions to things in life. While that may be a valid criticism of my habits, I think there is some value in it. Paul's letters of encouragement all have similar elements. There's a greeting before he gets down to business. Paul uses the greeting to express his heartfelt love and concern for the people he's writing to. Then he gets down to business. He addresses issues with heartfelt sincerety and sound principles. Paul is a master at delivering love with accountability - truth with grace. In the end, he turns personal again, leaving the reader with a very heartfelt goodbye.
   
   
2. Grace and Peace
   Frequently, in his letters, Paul starts out the letter by using the phrase "Grace and Peace be with you". I think it's important that those two elements become the goal of our encouragement. Grace and peace come from God - no where else. But we who are doing the encouragement are the hands and feet of God. We men, as brother's in Christ, are the method by which God delivers his grace and peace. I think it's really important that we keep this in the forefront of our minds when we set out to encourage and motivate another person.
   
   
3. Prayer.
   Paul prayed a lot! Often, when we are in a position to encourage someone it happens over a peroid of time and not for just one point in time (i.e. death of a family member, loss of job, divorce, etc). Pray for the person you're encouraging consistantly. Yes, it's possible that this means doing something you're not used to.
   
   
4. Truth and Grace.
   As I said before - Paul was a master at delivering accountability with a purpose. One of the venue pastors from my church said to me once "Grace always follows truth.". Accountabilty is important. At times, the reason why someone may need encouragement is because of consequences from poor choices they have made. When this is the case, as brothers in Christ, we need to shine the light on that and see it for what it is. However, grace needs to follow that truth. It has to be communicated in love and support - never with condemnation and condecention. Paul sometimes throws in references to his own failures in order to support his point of grace and to remind his reader that they're in the same boat. In other cases people are in bad spots through no fault of their own. A little different approach might be in order here. Remind them that God loves them and is in control of everything. This can be really difficult sometimes. I'm struggling with this myself. Sometimes it seems that the words "Jesus loves you" and $2 will buy you a coffee at Starbucks. My advice, for lack of anything better, is to acknowledge those feelings but continue to validate the truth. "I know that might be hard to believe right now, but it's true - God cares for you."
   
   
5. Teach - Don't Preach
   Paul always manages to maintain an attitude of sincerity. Many times, as he writes, he explains how his teaching is in their best interest. He communicate that the motivation for his teaching is because he cares for them so much and wants the very best for them. This is another critical element anytime you set out to encourage someone.
   
   
6. Humor.
   I often wonder why the writers of the contents of the Bible never included anything funny? I have been blessed by some very funny people in my life and I have recognized the asset that humor can be when encouraging someone. There are physical and emotional benefits to laughter and I think this can be an important part of encouragement - even if it's just to get someone's mind off their troubles for a few minutes. Just be careful to keep the humor appropriate. Racy or inappropriate jokes (not to be confused with bad jokes or groaners) can lead you down a path you're tying to avoid in the first place.
   
   
7. The wrap up.
   I think it's important when you end your time with someone that you do two things - pray together and let them know you love them.
   

I've written this for two reasons - First, I hope you find some value in what's written in this post. Second, one learns by doing. To that end I'm teaching myself by writing this to you. If you have anything to add, or if you think something needs to be corrected, please grab the comment box and give me your thoughts.

Thanks for tuning in.

Off On A Rant

 Forgive me.  I'm about to go on a rant ala Dennis Miller.  

Not long ago I found out that another marriage has bought the farm.  Once again, this is a couple that I hold as a good friend.  Tonight I find myself shaking my fist angrily at God and asking "How many more of my friends need to go through this?  This just isn't right!"

In any trial there is a prosecution and a defense.  In divorce proceedings there  is a prosecution and a defense on each side.  All four elements engage in a battle, each side using their prosecution and defense resources to impugn the other into submission or retreat until a judge declares - not a victory - but a cease fire.  

I'm so upset by this that I sat my analytical self down and attempted to make an outline, methodically laying out everything I wanted to say in this blog post.  In the end it all seemed like crap.  So please bear with me as I try to communicate to you what my heart feels.  

Guys, your home is the most important thing you have.  It's not just outlets, toilet valves, and shingles.  It's your home base of operations.  It's your fallout shelter from the blasts of the world.  It's the operations and logistics center for everyone in your home.  It's the war room where you solve problems and settle differences.  It's the oasis where you find peace and rest.  There are two very basic and very important aspects of your home that you have to understand clearly in order to prevent the retaining of legal counsel to impose a cease fire to the dysfunction.  

First, you have to understand that your home has a physical realm and a spiritual realm.  In the physical realm you close and lock all your doors and windows when you leave the house and when you go to sleep at night.  Why?  Obviously, to prevent those who would do you harm and steel your valuables from doing so.  It's common sense.  The same thing is true in the spiritual realm.  You need to take care to secure your home spiritually from those who would do you harm and take your valuables.  If you leave a door or a window unlocked or open it's an invitation for satan to come in and do harm to your relationship with your wife and your kids, rob you of your patience, your understanding, your leadership - leaving you with self doubt, anger, frustration, and all kinds of other bad stuff.  A guy can continually leave a spiritual window open and suddenly wake up in a crappy one bedroom apartment with the realization that everything he had has been taken from him.  You have to secure your home on the spiritual level as-well-as the physical level!

The second, and most important, aspect is that your relationship with God is directly connected with everything in your home - physically and spiritually.  How you humble yourself before God, acknowledge the Holy Spirit inside you, and choose to live under grace - OR NOT - will have a direct and immediate impact on your home and everyone in it.  

Please take some time today to be by yourself, in a quiet place, and make an honest evaluation of where you are with these two very important aspects of your home.  If you search your heart and you decide that you're on a pretty good track, then I'm happy for you - God bless you as you continue.  If you're struggling - if you know things aren't right - and you're not at all sure of how to bale out your boat before it goes under, please let me know.  There is help for you here.

Basic Training - Part Four: Victory!

Welcome to the fourth and final post dealing with the basics of Christianity and how God created us as human beings.  This information is the basis of the Christian faith and the foundation that a Christian marriage is based on.  These are concepts that are taken directly from the Bible.  The material and diagrams are produced by the Association of Exchanged Life Ministries (www.aelm.org).

There are diagrams to the right of the post that go along with the information.  If they seem small on your monitor feel free to right click on them and download. them to your computer.  This is NOT copyrighted material.  Each post will remain here for a week with the respective diagrams.  At the beginning of a new week, a new post will appear with the new diagrams.  The previous post will of course be beneath the new post, but the diagrams for the previous week will be gone.

Again, because this is a blog specifically focused on men - men will be specifically referred to.  Yet the information here applies equally to both men and women.

Part Four – Victorious Living.

I just want to take a moment and thank my wife, Jann for helping me put together and condense the exchanged life material into these four small posts.  She’s been a great help to me.

In the first post we talked about how God created us in three parts – body, soul, and spirit.  We looked at what happens when we’re dead to sin and, because He loved us so much, he offered us the gift of grace, which is the exchange of our dead, sinful spirit for his Holy Spirit.  In the second post we talked about how grace makes it so that we no longer have to be concerned with living our lives perfectly in order to achieve salvation.  We are free to choose NOT to sin because we are no longer slaves to sin.  The third post talks about our new identity in Jesus Christ and how it is Him who lives in and through us.   Yet, we still have to make the choice to follow him or to follow our own way. 

This week I want to close out this series by celebrating this victory over sin.  I’m going to do this by walking through some Bible verses that show how great this victory is.  Again, our victory is complete through Jesus Christ who died on the cross.  He took us with him spiritually on the cross, to hell, and back again through resurrection and has us spiritually seated with him in heaven.  It’s over.  It’s done.  You’re salvation is complete and there’s nothing you need to do but have a ball with it!

Let’s look at some things:

In Romans 8:36-39 the apostle Paul spells things out pretty clearly:

As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

How great is it to know that nothing can separate us from the God who loves us?!

In Romans again, Paul explains our freedom from slavery to sin:

Romans 6:16-18

Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?  But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted.  You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

When you live under grace the Holy Spirit inside you directly effects the three parts of your soul – you mind, will, and emotions. 

In Romans 15:18 Paul talks about how realizing this victory changes the way you think (your mind). 

I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done.

It also changes what you want to do (your will).

Romans 13:14

Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.

Remember -  you are free from sin and have the ability to choose.

Victory under the grace system also brings peace (emotions).

Psalm 23:3

He restores my soul.  He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Ephesians 3:20, 21 shows us the effect we can have on our corner of the world. 

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen.

Phil 4:19 assures us that God is all we need for anything in our lives.

And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.

In the following verses the Bible confirms that God lives inside us and we have His power through the Holy Spirit.

I Corinthians 2:16

For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?"  But we have the mind of Christ.

Phil 4:13

I can do everything through him who gives me strength.

This is the fabulous message of salvation that empowers us to be not only Christian men, but also husbands and fathers living under God’s grace.  Under the grace system we have the opportunity to do wonderful things in the relationships with our spouses and families.  The content of these four posts is the foundation of any information you read here. 

With out God’s gift of salvation through grace anything you would read here would be simply my opinion based on my efforts to be as good as I can be according to the old law of right and wrong.  Because of the Grace of God, I’m able to be used by him, for Him to speak to you through me, and I receive a blessing for it. 

This is not the gospel according to some guy.  This is God speaking to you through me.  If it ever becomes anything else it’s time to shut down this blog (go back and look at Romans 15:18).

Thanks for your time.

Basic Training - Part Three: Believer's Identity

Welcome to the third post dealing with the basics of Christianity and how God created us as human beings.  This information is the basis of the Christian faith and the foundation that a Christian marriage is based on.  These are concepts that are taken directly from the Bible.  The material and diagrams are produced by the Association of Exchanged Life Ministries (www.aelm.org).

There are diagrams to the right of the post that go along with the information.  If they seem small on your monitor feel free to right click on them and download. them to your computer.  This is NOT copyrighted material.  Each post will remain here for a week with the respective diagrams.  At the beginning of a new week, a new post will appear with the new diagrams.  The previous post will of course be beneath the new post, but the diagrams for the previous week will be gone.

Again, because this is a blog specifically focused on men - men will be specifically referred to.  Yet the information here applies equally to both men and women.

Part Three - Believer's Identity

First, we need to establish and recognize that we have a different identity as a Christian living under Grace.  Your new identity is in Jesus Christ.

Romans 6:3-5 says this:

"or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ jesus were baptized into his death?  We were there fore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.  If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection."

Figure 1 shows how our old sinful dead spirit was crucified with him, spiritually we went to hell with him, and spiritually we are raised up and sit in heaven with him now.

Here are some facts about a believer's identity in Jesus Christ (Taken from Romans 5:1-11):

• We have peace in our new identity.
• We are completely acceptable to God 
• We are dead to sin and alive to God.  We can choose NOT to sin.
• We died to our old "family tree" an Adam (sinful man).  We are now alive in Christ's family tree.
• Jesus Christ is all you need for any situation. (2 Peter 1:3) You can rest and have peace in this.  

A review of Figure 2 reminds us that there is a constant struggle between our inherently human sinful desires (dark circle with the F) and the Spirit.  This struggle exists because God gave us a choice to follow him or to handle things on our own.  We have to choose to listen to the Spirit and follow God.  

Check this out:

Romans 6: 12-14

"Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.  Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life, and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness.  For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace."

We must constantly be aware of this struggle and consciously choose not to sin.  We have the ability to do this because we have the Spirit inside us and we live by Grace - not by law.  

Living by the Spirit means that we give God access to our lives to let him work in and through us.  Giving access means having a relationship with God.  In every day life this means pursuing a relationship with him much like you pursue a relationship with your spouse.  It means have a conscious dependence on God for everything in your life.  It means communicating with God through prayer and Bible reading.  Figure 3 shows the Selfer's Prayer.  This puts it all in perspective and gives you a good idea of where Spirit life under Grace starts.  

While sin keeps us distant from God through guilt and fear, Grace creates intimacy with God.  This intimacy is what he really wants from us more than anything.  

I am personally convinced that this submission, this dying to self, this crucifying of pride (see Philippians 2:1-8) is crucial to our joy.  We think of denying self as somber, grim-faced business when it is in truth a prelude to dancing.  if you want power, learn to e assertive.  If you want joy, learn to be submissive.  

The reason our death (to self) increased the joy level all around is that it also increases the love level all around.  Only when we die to self  can we fully love one another.  Self is a devilish creature, demanding all our energy. wanting our constant attention, reaching even into our pocketbooks for favors.  how can we be attuned to another's spirit when self is making so much noise?  How can we ever hope to love another when self screams for our constant care?  When self is alive and well, if offers us an all-or-nothing proposition.  We either pacify self, or we crucify it.

- Judson Edwards

Basic Training - Part Two: Law and Grace

Welcome to the second post dealing with the basics of Christianity and how God created us as human beings.  This information is the basis of the Christian faith and the foundation that a Christian marriage is based on.  These are concepts that are taken directly from the Bible.  The material and diagrams are produced by the Association of Exchanged Life Ministries (www.aelm.org).

There are diagrams to the right of the post that go along with the information.  If they seem small on your monitor feel free to right click on them and download them to your computer.  This is NOT copyrighted material.  Each post will remain here for a week with the respective diagrams.  At the beginning of a new week, a new post will appear with new diagrams.  The previous post will of course be beneath the new post, but the diagrams for the previous post will be gone.  

Again, because this is a blog specifically focused on men - men will be specifically referred to.  Yet the information here applies equally to both men and women.  

Part Two - Grace and Law.

Okay.  So now you're sitting in your big comfy chair.  It's Sunday afternoon.  You're watching the big game on the big screen with a cold drink, a ham sandwich, and your gift of Grace.

Now what?  I don't have to worry about sinning anymore?  What does that mean?  I don't have to be ashamed of having too many beers on Saturday at the game?  I can vent my road rage and not worry about it?  Am I free to pursue my golf game regardless of how much time it takes and how much my wife complains about it?  Can I do anything I want?

Technically, yes.  You have salvation in Jesus Christ and you have the Holy Spirit inside you.  You can't lose your salvation.  Still, God didn't choose to have his only son sacrifice himself on the cross so you can get drunk, curse other motorists, and neglect your family.  

Let's look at some basics.

LAW is defined as the system of performance (or behavior) which God set up to bless those who fulfill its requirements and to curse those who do not.  It's based on the 10 commandments. 

Dueteronomy 28:1 says If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow al his command I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth.

This is an achievement based system.  All non-Christians operate under this set of standards (Actually, some Christians still operate under this set of standards when, in reality, they don't have to).  This is the system of thou shalts and thou shalt nots.  If you can do everything right, you gain acceptance - maybe even eternal life.  

Here's the problem - you can't.  There's no way you can reach perfection on your own.  To grab a phrase from my childhood - you're dead meat.  As a result we tend to get on this treadmill of the law shown in Figure 1.  We try, fail, confess our sins, receive forgiveness, and try again.  This will make you crazy!  You see, the system based on the law makes you religious, but it keeps the Holy Spirit inside you pressed down and makes you ineffective as a Christian.  

This is how the Jews in the New Testament were messed up.  Everything was done in order to show others how closely they followed the law.  They were deeply religious people but they had no relationship with Jesus Christ.  In fact, they murdered him.  They were self-righteous - that is trying to be righteous by their own power.  

It was this deeply chilling and self-righteous religion that caused God to send his Son to die for us.  Let's apply that to you and me.  If we try to gain acceptance based on our performance measured against the law of right and wrong a number of character traits are going to float to the top.   

• We won't be able to handle rejection or criticism
• We won't be free to fail and to learn from our mistakes.
• We'll be defensive and poor listeners.
• We'll be prideful - happy when someone else fails because it lifts up our standing.
• At the same time we'll have low self-esteem because we know the reality of our failures.
• We'll never be at peace with  ourselves.
• We'll constantly find fault with others and be very judgmental.
• We'll be very afraid of God.  Our relationship with him will be out of fear of punishment for the wrong we've done. God will be distant and cold because we avoid him out of fear. 

This is so NOT what God wants for us.  God loves us and wants a close personal relationship with each of us.  To accomplish that, he did something radical and new.  

Consider this:

Hebrews 7:18, 19  The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God.

Hebrews 8:13  By calling this covenant "new" He has made the first one obsolete., and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear.  

Galatians 3:21  Is the law therefore opposed to the promises of God?  Absolutely not!  For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law.

When you read that last verse from Galatians you see that simply knowing the difference between right and wrong and banging your head on the wall to do good things doesn't make you alive in the Spirit (Review the diagram in Figure 2).  

GRACE is defined as the system of faith (trust, dependence) which God set up to Bless those who are in Christ only because they are in Christ.  

Grace is given as a gift - just because you believe - nothing more.  It's not based on your performance against the law of right and wrong.  It's receiving - not achieving.  Any Christian who accepts Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior (born again) can receive this gift.  

I know you're thinking "Whoa man!  There's got to be more to it than that."   Well, yes, there is.  Jesus Christ came to earth, was put to death by the Jews, and was brought back to life again by God.  When this happened, Jesus Christ made everything you do right for God.  He justified you in the eyes of God.  As a Christian are you going to live from this point forward never sinning again?  No.  It's impossible for you to live a sin-less life.  But through the lens of Grace through Jesus Christ, you are perfect to God.  

Look at this:

Matthew 5:17  Do you think that I have come to abolish the law or the Prophets:  I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.  

II Corinthians 5:21  God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.  

God had Jesus Christ, his son, die for us so that we could be perfect for God.  This is so amazing that someone wrote a song about it!  

This is the basics of God's Grace through Jesus Christ.  This is what it means to be saved.  The logical next step for this is how do live this in an every day kind of way.   How do I identify myself with Grace?  I hate to leave you hanging, but that is what's on tap for next week.  

Stay tuned!

Basic Training Notice

Starting Monday, October 20, my wife and I are going to post a collaborative series of messages that address the basics of being a married Christian.  While this blog is specifically addressed to men, the content of these posts apply to both men and women. 

There will be 4 posts dealing with what happens when you become a Christian, the power of the Holy Spirit inside us, the gift of Grace and how it gives us freedom from sin, and how we live having won the battle over sin.  I'll put up a new post each monday starting Oct 20 with the last post on Nov 10.  This series is intended to be a check-up, putting us all on the same page as I go forward with the mission of supporting Christian married men.  

If you receive 4BetterOr4Worse posts through an RSS feed you'll want to actually go to the site and bookmark it.   The RSS feed will not bring over the visual aids that go along with this series that will really help you understand how to apply this information.  

I want to thank my wife Jann for helping me put these things together.   She has received formal training on all of the information covered and she's helping me condense a huge amount of information into 4 posts. 

See you next week!

Grace and Peace

I've been doing some work in the Bible - specifically First Peter.  For those of you not as familiar with the Bible as others - a lot of the books in the New Testament are letters written to groups of people - most often churches.  Each letter starts out with a greeting.  When I read these letters i tend to blow through the greetings and get to the heart of the letter.  But when I started it this time I was stopped short by a very small sentence at the end of the greeting.  

"Grace and Peace be with you in abundance."  

I thought about this for a while and wondered how that fits in marriage relationships.  I've decided that, in a marriage, grace and peace isn't something that appears with the wave of a magic wand.  It isn't a supernatural state of being that you pray for and, through an act of God, appears in your home.  Grace and peace is something you work for.   It's a practice - a lifestyle choice, if you will.  

Grace is defined as the gift from God.  The gift is forgiveness of sins.  Because through the gift of grace our sins are forgiven, we are held up as perfect and so we have eternal life.  Grace was made possible ONLY through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  You can't buy it.  You can't earn it like a paycheck.  Once you accept the the gift of grace you can't lose it.  Claim it as your own and it's yours - it's that simple.  Okay - end of Bible school.

In a marriage, peace follows grace.  Grace is when you've been wronged by your spouse, but you realize the goodness in them as a whole and make the decision to forgive.  Through open communication and forgiveness peace happens.  Forgiveness and humility go hand in hand.  Nothing diffuses a tension and brings about peace faster than an apology made with sincerity and a soft heart.  This I know from experience.  

Now, I can hear you sound off with two objections.  First, "If I tell her that she's hurt me and I forgive her, I'll come off as condescending and she'll snap!"  My response to you is that, if your marriage is like mine, there's enough hurt to go around.  So put the two together.  Diffuse the situation with the "I'm sorry" (sincerely and with a soft heart).   Then you can open up the communication and talk about your hurts and offer your own grace to the situation.  The second objection I hear is "I don't want to say I'm sorry!  I didn't start this!"  The truth is that if grace needs to be restored to your relationship and "she's lost that lovin' feelin", you need to set your pride aside and get over yourself.  After all - do you want to be right -  or do you want the grace and peace?

Don't get discouraged if you try this and it doesn't work the first time.  Grace and peace in your marriage is like your golf swing.  It takes practice - effort - you have to "work" at it.  What's more, don't do this on your own.  Share the concept with your spouse so they know what's going on.  It works better if both of you know what's going on.  

One last point.  What this does NOT say is that you need to become a doormat and be taken advantage of or be abused.  If that's happening to you, get some help.  Talk to your pastor, see a counselor, or start with a note here for a second opinion.  

Thanks for stopping by.

Getting What We Deserve

The other day my son came to me very upset over a run in he had with a friend in the neighborhood.  This kid and my son go back and forth.  One day they're best friends and the next day they're bitter enemies.  My son said to me, "Should he get what he deserves?"

Immediately, I flashed back to a message I heard at my church and the words the pastor said.   "I'm sure glad I don't get what I deserve".  Based on my behavior as a follower of Jesus, a parent, and a husband - what I deserve isn't very appetizing.  However, I have the full forgiveness of the Grace of God.  So, fortunately, I can avoid what I deserve.  Jesus Christ got what I deserve when he died on the cross and went to hell and back on my behalf.  

So, I told my son that even when his friends do mean things we try not to repay them with more mean things.  I told him that he needs to take care of himself and not put himself in a position to endure the mean things of other people - but that it is also important to forgive people when they hurt us and deserve to be hurt in return.  

To err is human.  To forgive, divine.  

Thanks.