Bill Yount: "What's Eating You?"

"What's Eating You?"

Bill Yount, Hagerstown, Maryland

Love Your Enemies

I have noticed something about the love of God. God's love is not fair. He even loves our enemies. The Lord showed me that as we pray for people – especially our enemies – He picks up a pen and continues to write their story. So we must continue to pray for people, including our enemies. He's not through writing our story either, unless we allow those hurts by others to eat us alive. Perhaps I'm meddling, but I'm not sorry.

"But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in Heaven..." (Matthew 5:44-45 NKJV). I believe this is how we survive and overcome in the last days.

Sometimes it's not that person who offended you that makes you feel lousy. It's the Holy Spirit inside of you feeling grieved, for He wants to love them anyway through you (see Ephesians 4:30:31 NIV).

Living in Forgiveness

Plan now to forgive the next person who offends you, because there will be one. After that, forgive another one. Plan on living in forgiveness, because unforgiveness allows the person who hurt or offended you to get inside you...into your mind and into your emotions.

After being offended by someone who hurt me deeply, I was left with bitterness. The Lord began to deal with me about not only forgiving this person, but also praying for them. I prayed for God to bless them because I couldn't. After weeks of praying, the Lord showed me that they hurt me because they had been hurt by someone else. Still, the hurt stayed with me. A couple of months later, as I continued to pray for them, to my amazement, the hurt and bitterness were gone! I felt born again all over. I learned the hard way why the Lord commands us to pray for our enemies and even bless them. It works for our good. God is still in the reconciling business, and often He works through us. (Photo via Flickr)

"...in Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation." (2 Corinthians 5:19 ESV)

Drop the Labels to Lower Offenses

I would like to suggest that we take the labels off of people. I believe it hinders us from seeing them as God sees them. Start calling people who are lost: "a chosen generation, a royal priesthood," and watch the Holy Spirit take over. God calls us holy, so let's give others credit on how God sees them.

When I first ministered to the Amish and Mennonite Communities, the Lord spoke to me, "Drop the labels, for these people are just like you. They have dreams and needs like everyone else on Earth. The world labels people, but I don't. No matter what people's lifestyle is, I only see them as lost or found." This freed me to minister in the Spirit instead of the flesh.

"So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know Him now!" (2 Corinthians 5:16 NLT)

Offenses Will Come

"Then He said to the disciples, 'It is impossible that no offenses should come, but woe to him through whom they do come!'" (Luke 17:1 NKJV)

Jesus said offenses will come; that sounds like a promise. Yet, sometimes our enemies come to bless us. During another severe hurt, the Lord spoke, "Bill, if you will forgive and bless your enemy, I will bless you." Suddenly, those words took my focus off of that person who hurt me and put it back onto the Lord. Then, an overwhelming desire to be blessed myself came over me. Oh, how I wanted and needed God to bless me! Immediately, the hurt began to heal, as it dawned on me that when we do what God tells us to do, He blesses us. Obedience brings the blessing of the Lord and adds no sorrow with it (see Proverbs 10:22).

Each time the hurt came back, I said, "No, I want that blessing!" In twenty-four hours, a blessing came that was overwhelming to me.

I believe when we stop loving, we start dying. Let's live and not die.

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Bill Yount
Blowing the Shofar Ministry
Email: theshofarhasblown@juno.com
Website: www.billyount.com

Bill Yount has been a member of Bridge of Life Church in Hagerstown, Maryland for the past 40 years where he is in leadership. He faithfully served in Prison Ministry at Mount Hope Inc. for 23 years and now travels full-time, ministering in churches and Aglow circles. Bill's calling is to encourage the Body of Christ to move forward into God's destiny as they are sent into the harvest field. "Humility and Humor" characterize his ministry as he brings forth a fresh word that is "in season" proclaiming the Word of the Lord! The shofar or (ram's horn) is at times used in his meetings, breaking the powers of darkness over regions, churches and households. Many of God's messages which Bill ministers prophetically, come out of every day life with his family and friends.

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