Sentence Sermons (Christian Inspiration) #96 --- Grudges

To envy or begrudge anyone his good fortune is a direct reproach to the Giver of All Good.

---Edmund J. Kiefer, Buffalo Courier-Express, Buffalo, N.Y., Feb. 28, 1960.

The finest gesture anyone can make is to extend a forgiving hand. The more there is to forgive, the greater is the significance of forgiving. To decline to forgive others eventually may mean to be unable to forgive oneself. The larger the heart, the less capable of holding a petty grudge. Enlightened maturity knows life is broad enough for love but not long enough for hate. The Lord has more to overlook in us than we can see as unforgivable in others.

---Edmund J. Kiefer, Buffalo Courier-Express, Buffalo, N.Y., Nov. 7, 1954.

To nurse injuries is to raise a brood of miseries.

---Elijah Powell Brown, Duluth Evening Herald, Duluth, Minn., Sept. 2, 1899.

If one would cultivate a fellow feeling as one nurses a grudge, every home would be run according to the Golden Rule.

---Henry Edward Warner, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Richmond, Va., Oct. 28, 1915.

When people are irritable, irrational and contentious, it may be due to ill health. I believe it often is. But sometimes, and some thinkers believe always, it is due to bad thinking and wrong living. It is mighty easy to get cobwebs in our minds. We let selfish considerations take over, or let hate inflame, and thus we fail to think straight.

I am thinking now of some mighty good people whose lives have been hurt, perhaps beyond repair, by holding a grudge against a neighbor. We forget that this never hurts the neighbor, it only hurts us. For our own peace of mind, we cannot afford to think evil of anyone. Perhaps we have been wronged, but the wisest course is to forgive and to forget.

The day we take a step away from straight and sound thinking, that day we have begun to walk into blind alleys. The worst self asserts its power over us, and we become a victim to evil influences. No man ever becomes good or great until he conquers himself by sound thinking and useful living.

We live in a universe of both physical and moral laws. We all know if we drink poison we destroy the physical body. For some reason or other we do not know, that if we break these moral laws by which we are governed, we destroy our spiritual nature—our better selves. Many people who are careful to obey the laws of the land, break with impunity the moral law of the universe.

We can disregard the great laws of life and exist for a time, but we cannot truly live. We lose the ability to think straight, and thus cannot live right. At last we awaken to the fact that we are not happy inside, that we are not fulfilling our destiny, and we become irritable, irrational and contentious. To get out of blind alleys, begin sound thinking and make peace with great moral laws.

---Chelsea H. “C.H.” Kelley, Williamson Daily News, Williamson, W. Va., Nov. 11, 1948.

Life is too short to be harboring grudges.

The “touchy” person, the man and woman who is easily offended, and who harbors and nurses a real, or imaginary, affront, is absolutely devoid of common sense—say nothing of love.

And usually the oversensitive, the easily-offended person, is also the person, who, when he himself is guilty of an indiscretion, is the first to expect and demand immediate forgiveness. Extremes are generally found within a small radius.

We should always bear in mind that if we expect forgiveness, we must be forgiving.

We cannot pray in sincerity to God: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us,” and at the same time harbor ill-feeling against others in our hearts.

If we expect God to forgive us our shortcomings, our sins against God and our fellowman, we must not bear a grudge. We cannot afford to be easily offended.

If a man administers a hard snap on your back, don’t get peeved. Simply say: “That was fine; that spot on my back was itching me for some time, and just needed an antidote.”

Remember: Bear no grudge—rather suffer chagrin and humiliation.

---John Peter Janett, Milwaukee Sentinel, Milwaukee, Wis., March 23, 1927.

We must watch against sin, with uncompromising warfare. There must be absolute sincerity and wholehearted thoroughness at this point. That were but hollow mockery for a man to pray for forgiveness, his own heart the while burning with hatred and festering with grudges against some fellow creature. The amputating knife of repentance must be put to sin, if we would hope for the smile of Jesus and for the benefit of His blood which cleanseth from all sin. God can’t afford to answer some men’s prayers! For Him to do so would be to put a premium upon sin. The hidden wedge of gold and the Babylonish garment must be disclosed and restored, if men may hope for answered prayer. It is sin that separates between man and God. It is sin that cuts the nerve of all acceptable prayer. Sin is a veil through which Jesus cannot be seen. Sin is an insulator that turns away the currents between man and God. It is “the supplication of a righteous man that availeth much.” “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” No man who is not keenly sensitive to sin, can know much or see much of Jesus. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God”—see Him here and now in daily experience. “Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart, who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive the blessing of the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation.” Oh, what need have we for frequent and most rigid self-examination, that we may become increasingly sensitive to every approach of sin. And we are to watch with all diligence against the little sins. It was the little foxes that spoiled the vines. If we carelessly cherish what may seem to be inconsequential sins, for example, pride, which goeth before destruction, and envy, which is as rottenness in the bones, these sins will consume us as doth a cancer, and more and more will they hide us from the face of Jesus.

---George W. Truett, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Brooklyn, N.Y., Jan. 17, 1910.

[Read Mark 11:22-26.] “When ye stand praying, forgive”—so spoke the Lord of life. This is not a suggestion or a bit of advice but a command. It cannot be suspended or amended or evaded. It has in it the inexorableness of the Decalogue. When we speak to God we must speak to Him out of a forgiving heart. If we do not forgive those who have wronged us, then God will not forgive us. Why not? Because He cannot. This is not the arbitrary dictum of a capricious despot, but the operation of an eternal law. Prayer is communion with God. God is love, and hate cannot commune with love. A spiteful heart cannot hold fellowship with a heart of pity. A forgiving God cannot dwell in a heart made foul by grudges. Vindictive people cannot pray. They can say prayers but must expect no answers. The spirit of revenge strikes the heavens dumb. One reason why we are so uncertain in regard in the efficacy of prayer is because there is so much foolish praying and such foolish praying and such widespread flouting of the laws of prayer.

---Charles Edward Jefferson, Waycross Journal-Herald, Waycross, Ga., March 6, 1934.

“And . . . there they crucified Him. Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” (Luke 22:33-34.)

These words came from out of the most indescribable agony of body. It was the gentle murmur of a loving heart in modest prayer. Ah! They crushed, they broke that heart; but it sent forth only the sweet fragrance of its love, as a crushed flower its perfume.

“There they crucified him.” Let the words remain as the evangelist left them, to tell their own story of human sin, and of divine love which many waters could not quench. Only let us think in silence before God of all these words convey. Instead of thinking of His own hurt, He was thinking of the hurt these cruel men were doing to their own souls.

“Father, forgive them.” Forgiveness was scarcely known before Christ came. The feud spirit of the mountaineer is the opposite of the spirit of Christ. Sad to say, the same unforgiving spirit is sometimes between professing Christians in the same church.

Have you any grudges against anyone? If so, forgive. Life is too short to spent any portion of it in harboring ill will. When a man feel that he cannot forgive, his peace is gone. This is not so much caused by the loss of fellowship with one’s fellows as the loss of fellowship with Christ.

---Homer Ketler Miller, The Daily Times, Beaver, Pa., April 5, 1938.

Forgiveness makes a big man. Some of the hardest problems of life come here. …

Many a time repentance consists in a deep regret that the sinner got caught. Repentance can be shown by altered character and by changed disposition. The true man of God walks along a path here which makes keen discernment and judgment necessary. Just when shall we feel that the sinner’s repentance has reached a point which makes it wise for us to let the sins of a day gone by pass from the books? I suggest that we may do so when the true conditions for this have been met—true repentance; altered character; and changed disposition.

Perhaps we have found that someone had aimed a blow at us. Instead of knocking us down, it knocked us up. Keep your faith in God and don’t spend too much of your time chewing on the memories of wrongs which have been done to you. God will get into those things, if you will trust Him, and will show you a way by which you can use these very abuses for uses, and can make these very things which were to hold you down and be weights become wings upon which you shall rise to greater things. Harboring a grudge is a sure way to shrink your life. No man is harmed so much by a grouch and grudge as the man who carries it.

---J.O.J. Taylor, Waycross Journal-Herald, Waycross, Ga., June 19, 1937.

Too many of us go through life harboring grudges. Most of them begin over petty things that build into mountainous matters just by continually thinking about them.

Bitterness and rancor are difficult to hide. These traits show in our face, in our tone of voice and certainly in our actions. God did not intend us to live this way.

Be slow to take offense, quick to forgive. It takes much more effort to be angry and remain that way than it does to forgive and forget. If you have been inclined this way in the past, begin today to replace bitterness and resentment with love.

---James G. Keller, Houston Post, Houston, Texas, June 27, 1955.

You don't get rid of old grudges by pushing them into the subconscious. They must be forgiven.

These old grudges are like old sores. They will poison the body and rob us of all our strength. You must face them and take some constructive steps to heal them. The greatest mistake a man can make is to say to himself: "I'll just forget about the past and turn over a new leaf." Unless we get forgiveness of the past it will meet us around every corner.

---Robert V. Ozment, The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, Ga., July 17, 1961.

The heaviest burden you can possibly bear is a chip on your shoulder. A grudge is a ball and chain on your ankle. Spite is a fence with a hole in it so you can watch your neighbor and poison his dog when he isn't looking. It is a malicious thing that backfires every time it is openly demonstrated.

Suspicion is a noose about your neck. And every time you give it your attention it tightens until it eventually squeezes friendship and love to death.

Now a chip on your shoulder makes you lopsided and pulls you out of shape. You lose your poise, slow up your pace, forget your direction and actually become a pain in the neck.

It is purely mental, therefore the doctor's hypodermic or the surgeon's scalpel cannot cure your trouble. If coddled and protected it becomes malignant in your mind.

A grudge is nothing but a derailer on life's railroad. Every time a train of joy and good wishes comes along it is wrecked and ruined and the damage is irreparable. Holding a grudge is like carrying a fifty pound weight in each hand--you cannot let go because it would injure your pride, and as long as you hold on you cannot help anyone else.

Suspicion is a child of fear. No crime was ever committed but what suspicion was lurking nearby. The one who commits a crime is suspicious of everyone he meets, even his partner in crime. Those seeking the offender are suspicious of a dozen or more people before the guilty one is found.

Paul said: "Forgetting that which is behind I press onward toward the mark." (Philippians 3:13-14.) A good job of forgetting is one of the most necessary things in the life of the average person. Therefore set a mark for yourself--press toward it, let nothing interfere with your journey. This practice will see the lurking hindrances sink into the shadows and silently pass away.

---Carlysle H. Holcomb, Dallas Morning News, Dallas, Texas, Feb. 13, 1954.

Carrying a grudge or an imagined insult, or a hurt administered by some friend or enemy is like toting an unnecessary burden around on our backs. Runners sometimes wear weights before a race so that when the time for the race comes they lay off their weights and feel almost like flying. They would be foolish to try to run a race with the weights on their feet. This is what a celebrated writer had in mind when he wrote, "Let us lay aside every weight and run the race that is set before us." (Hebrews 12:1.)

How utterly silly and illogical for anybody with good common sense to be carrying around insults real or imaginary, injustices either factual or sensed. For our own sakes we should forgive. ... Grudges are like any other wild thing, when they are fertilized and cultivated they grow bigger and bigger.

---Floyd Poe, Dallas Morning News, Dallas, Texas, April 23, 1948.

Nothing more soils the soul and blurs the spiritual vision and undermines the foundations of character than the nursing of a grudge. If you have an unrepented and unforsaken grudge in your heart, if you are letting some miserable misunderstanding run on, if you are keeping any wretched quarrel alive, sacrifice your pride and have done with it before the going down of the sun, remembering the words of Paul, how he said: "Be kindly affectioned one toward another; in honor preferring one another, forgiving one another as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." (Romans 12:10.)

---Henry Alford Porter, Baptist Standard, Dallas, Texas, Nov. 5, 1914.

There is the old grudge. You can hardly realize how long you have had that with you. It is surprising how a wicked thing like that can fasten itself upon one--and soon becomes a part of all the thought and plan and purpose. Yea, of the very life itself, when you began to cherish that you let some other and better things die, perhaps you were wronged. That may be, but cherishing the thought of it and laying it away among your permanent possessions, as a grudge to be brought forth when opportunity offered for "evening up," was a sin, and it has made the life hard and unspiritual and has so marred the Savior's likeness in you that no one ever sees a reflection of His life in yours. Let is die, whatever it may be, however just you may believe you were, and however culpable another may have been, let it die--it is not worth keeping.

---Thomas S. Potts, The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, Ga., April 23, 1900.

There are those unwise persons who torture themselves for weeks and even months or years by harboring grudges, by attempting to exact an eye for an eye. Not only is this practice unChristian but it is ineffective. It backfires, injuring most the one with the grudge. No one can harbor a grudge, which is nothing more than hate, without damaging himself. Like a cancer, it eats at his soul. It destroys his personality. It injures his soul. It robs him of friends. It deprives him of inward peace. It separates him from God.

The alternative, the better way, is to keep no book on injuries and other affronts. ... When one refuses to harbor grudges, there are never any wrongs to be made right if fellowship is to be restored. There are no apologies which must be made. There is no separation from God.

The most unhappy man alive is the one who devotes his hours to "getting even" with people, to "paying back" those who have offended him.

---H.M. Baggarly, Tulia Herald, Tulia, Texas, Dec. 3, 1964.

We can't afford to carry grudges for our own sakes more than for the objects of our hate. No work load is so debilitating as carrying a hurting and resentful spirit. The whole person is thrust into an abnormal mode--the mode is change and the body chemistry is altered. All this sets us up for poor judgment, faulty performance, and health problems. Life is too precious, too short, and there are too many nice people around to let a few drive us to waste. The happiest people in the world are those who live by this rule: "And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." (Ephesians 4:32.)

---Sidney Fontenot, Lake Charles American Press, Lake Charles, La., April 24, 1990.

No one person can so spoil the atmosphere of a home or a church or can so quickly kill a friendship as the one who holds "a secret grudge." Such a person picks out flaws in something someone has said or done, broods over a fancied slight, assumes an injured air, and maintains an offended silence. The nursed grudge grows to momentous proportions. Usually the person blamed hasn't the slightest idea what it is all about just wonders at the wall of silence suddenly erected.

Don't nurture a secret grudge. If someone has unintentionally, or even intentionally, done something to hurt you, that one should at least be given an opportunity to explain or apologize. Bring the grudge out into the open where it will be recognized as a molehill rather than a mountain. A happy home, a joyous church fellowship, a delightful friendship or your own peace of mind do not risk losing these by silently nursing a secret grudge.

---Henrietta Heron, Christian Standard, Cincinnati, Ohio, April 2, 1938.

Oversensitiveness and hurt feelings often indicate self-centeredness. Remember that those who hurt your feelings may have been so deeply absorbed in other interests as to have been quite unaware that anything was said or done that hurt you; that is, they hurt you unwittingly. Learn the lesson involved, then forget the experience. Direct your sensitiveness into thoughtfulness of others and in alertness to avoid hurting the feelings of others, and it will be of real value to you.

---Henrietta Heron, Christian Standard, Cincinnati, Ohio, May 28, 1938.

The grudge against a man ... may be based on misinformation, ... or it may arise from misunderstanding. ... Spite and hate [are] awakened by [your] misunderstanding of [a] man. ... [Don't] keep these sleepy dogs within [you]. [Don't make your] heart a kennel for the dogs of spite and hate which, when awakened, [are] permitted to run as they will. ...

No man is fit ... for any place of leadership among Christians who is willing to cherish grudges and to speak and act vindictively. ...

A grudge, like a nettle, will torture the person who handles it gently. Grasped promptly and strongly, loses its power to hurt.

---O.C.S. Wallace, Christian Index, Atlanta, Ga., Sept. 26, 1929.

Many persons could be free from their aches by relinquishing their long-standing grudge. This means forgiving one just as God has forgiven us. And we do need forgiveness. While an injustice may have been done to us, our guilt lies in the hatred and resentment which we have harbored in our hearts.

---Browning Ware, Beaumont Enterprise, Beaumont, Texas, Sept. 30, 1966.

Forgiveness is defined as willingness to forgive and as the act of forgiving. It is both subjective and objective. It is willingness plus action.

Unforgiveness is a double vice; forgiveness is a two-fold virtue.

Forgiveness as a gift of mercy is a guard against the grievous error of grudge holding.

True forgiveness sets suspicion aside and puts trust or confidence in its place.

Human forgiveness in its complete form will not have room in it for the enjoyment of punishment even though it be necessarily inflicted. Righteous forgiveness is void of retribution. However full of sympathy and trust forgiveness may be for the sinner, it must not fail to carry condemnation for the sin. It may hold out comfort to the criminal but it must never condone crime.

There is a sort of self-forgiveness that is little more than self-indulgence. In it there is scarcely the thought of character reconstruction. It is not followed by that divine injunction, "Go thy way and sin no more" (John 8:11); it does not even invite heroism into the soul; it sleeps in the arms of iniquity and awakens only at the call of dire calamity, never self accusing, always sin excusing. Consenting to the bondage of sin, it leads the way of immediate gratification to remove grief. Yet self-forgiveness is essential to the abundant life. The holding of a grudge against one's self is as inconsistent as the holding of a grudge against another is unrighteous; it is always a sign of soul sickness, and tends toward a disregard for self that may terminate in self-destruction. Self-forgiveness of the high type raises one above unprofitable regrets; it enables one to say to one's despondent soul:

"Arise, if the past detain you,

Its sunshine and sorrows forget

No chain so unworthy to hold you,

As that of a vain regret."

---George H. Brimhall, Deseret News, Salt Lake City, Utah, April 2, 1927.

Thinking bitterly of others strikes a blow at my own heart.

---Henry F. Cope, Chicago Tribune, Chicago, Ill., Aug. 2, 1908.

Human nature should contain a cemetery for unkindness and a graveyard for grudges.

---Earl Riney, Church Management, Cleveland, Ohio, May 1946.

Some people are unhappy unless you help them carry their grudges for them.

---Roy L. Smith, Christian Advocate, Chicago, Ill., July 10, 1941.

Any person who goes about with a grudge in his heart because a carrier of spiritual infection.

---Roy L. Smith, Christian Advocate, Chicago, Ill., Aug. 5, 1943.

No man can walk straight with a chip on his shoulder.

---Roy L. Smith, Christian Advocate, Chicago, Ill., March 8, 1945.

It is difficult to go on holding a grudge against the man you are praying for.

---Roy L. Smith, Christian Advocate, Chicago, Ill., March 29, 1945.

No wise man ever carries grudges after they are outgrown.

---Roy L. Smith, Tampa Morning Tribune, Tampa, Fla., Jan. 16, 1935.

Every man must surrender some grudges if he is ever to have any friends.

---Roy L. Smith, Tampa Morning Tribune, Tampa, Fla., Feb. 7, 1942.

Bury your grudges without any funeral.

---Dallas Morning News, Dallas, Texas, Feb. 10, 1906.

Some men who pretend to love their neighbors must have an awful grudge against themselves.

---Lewiston Teller, Lewiston, Idaho, May 20, 1907.

Some people carry grudges throughout life and, in time, retain the grudge without being able to explain it, even to themselves.

---River Press, Fort Benton, Mont., Sept. 9, 1936.

The smaller the mind the longer it carries a grudge. A big minded person seldom nurses a grudge. A little minded person isn't big enough to forget it.

---Roosevelt Standard, Roosevelt, Utah, Jan. 30, 1936.