Not Forsaken

by Louie Giglio

  To be honest, there aren’t simple answers to these questions. There’s no “one-size-fits-all” bandage that can make sense of your hurt and pain. But there is a giant cross standing in the middle of your story.

  As I sit with people and am invited into their pain, I always seek to help them focus on the cross of Jesus. It’s real. And immovable. And it’s the only place we can find healing in the midst of deep, heart-shattering pain. It’s where you need to camp if you have a life story blown apart by the actions of your earthly dad, because the place you find peace with your heavenly Father is the same place you’re going to find the possibility of peace with your earthly dad. Peace is found in the cross of Christ.

  As your eyes are opened to see the cross, several key truths about the work Jesus did on the cross will help sustain you in the darkest times, and I encourage you to mediate on these:

  1. The cross of Christ will reinforce that God loves you.

  The Enemy is already telling you that if God loved you then these terrible, painful things wouldn’t have occurred.

  Obviously, God doesn’t love you , Satan drones. If He did love you then why would all these horrible things be happening to you.

  Soon, we start repeating Satan’s lies to ourselves, and others. We think, There’s something wrong with me. Or maybe God is trying to punish me. Or maybe He just doesn’t care. Or, maybe He isn’t even there.

  But the cross is indisputable proof that God loves you because it’s the place where He gave His best for you.

  You may be thinking, I don’t feel loved . Fortunately, the love God displayed for you doesn’t begin with a feeling. His love is demonstrated in a reality. Jesus really died for you. So we start by believing a reality, sinking our thoughts into the truth of what happened on the cross. In time, our feelings will follow as we remind ourselves again and again of what happened there.

  “And this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and gave his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:10). “For God demonstrated his love toward us in this, that while we were still sinners Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8).

  2. The cross of Christ is the place that allows you to know that God understands your pain.

  Your heavenly Father knows what it’s like to watch His Son suffer and die. And Jesus knows the depths of anguish just like you. Jesus is not indifferent to your pain. He understands what you are feeling and has been crushed by the darkness.

  A few months ago, during a Q&A before one of our Passion Worship Night Tour stops, an interesting question came from a young girl in the crowd. Her question was one we’d never gotten before. In a pre-event format like this one the questions usually range from How’d you guys get your start in ministry? to How do you stay balanced with church, tour, speaking and all the other things you have going?

  When her turn came, she asked, I’ve experienced a murder in my family, and I don’t know what to do. Can God help someone like me?

  What do you say in a moment like that, especially when the question catches you off guard?

  After a pause, I told her first how sorry I was to know that she had walked through something so difficult, seeing someone in her family murdered. I also told her I couldn’t fully relate to her situation because I hadn’t experienced anything like it, but I knew God could. God could relate fully.

  And then the Spirit helped me. I was reminded by God’s Spirit as I was answering that God has witnessed a murder in His family, too. He watched as evil men took the life of His Son (yes, it was His plan, but it was carried out by hate-filled men.) I had never spoken of Christ’s death in those terms before, but I had never been asked that question before, either. God understands her pain, and yours.

  How do you know? The cross of Christ is proof.

  3. The cross of Christ is proof that God can take the worst and bring something good from it.

  I know that can sound trite, like a church sound-bite. And it would be if the cross of Jesus wasn’t in your story, casting such a powerful legacy of hope over your life.

  Let’s be honest. If we had been eyewitnesses to the death of Jesus, we would be convinced that we’d been privy to the worst this sinful world has to offer. What an awful day, we’d say. Could anything ever be worse than today?

  The innocent Son of God was railroaded unjustly and killed via one of the most excruciating means of execution ever devised. Even Earth couldn’t watch as darkness shrouded the cross in the middle of the afternoon.

  But three days later, Jesus beat death, overcoming sin, hell, and the grave. By the power of God, Jesus was alive again, victorious and free. Today, after more than two thousand years of history have passed, we followers of Jesus don’t call that day “Bad Friday.” No, it’s the opposite. We call it “Good Friday.” We don’t claim it as the worst day in history; we sing about it as the best thing that ever happened to the human race. Why, because God took the worst and turned it into the best.

  Facing Your Family Tree

  If God can bring about our best from Christ’s worst, He can surely overcome the mangled web of destruction left by people in your life. God can restore and bring about something beautiful from the chaos in your life, the legacy of devastation in your past. He can and will bring the change that displays His power and love. Oh, and this is not some fairy-tale promise I’m offering, some wishful mumbo-jumbo. It’s bedrock truth anchored in history at the cross of Jesus.

  The prophet Joel proclaims that God says, “I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten” (Joel 2:25). So even if the sin of your father, or his foolishness or disinterest or failure, has left your heart like a devastated mountainside, clear-cut of everything beautiful and fruitful and promising, it’s not the end of your story. Even if a firestorm of destruction has left your life bare, God is in the business of giving beauty for ashes, and that’s what He wants to do for you.

  The Enemy is trying to drive a wedge between you and God by using what has happened with your dad to make you doubt that God’s heart is good and His arms are strong. Yet, a new understanding and a fresh glimpse of the finished work of the cross can forge a bond between you and your heavenly Father that cannot be broken.

  Calvary’s tree is always primary over anyone’s earthly family tree. On Calvary’s tree Jesus made a way for you to join a new family as a forgiven son or daughter of the King. Through Jesus you are now a part of the best family of all. But He’s placed you in your particular human family for a reason.

  In the next chapter we’ll look more closely at how your powerful new identity as God’s child changes you and how it can transform your earthly family tree with that same miracle power.

  Chapter 6

  Reverse the Curse

  A big trend today is people wanting to know about their ancestry. Advances in technology make it more simple and affordable than ever before. All you have to do is pay company “X” for their services and soon a collection kit arrives at your front door. You gather a dollop of saliva and ship it back in the enclosed package. That’s it. In a few weeks you receive access to your data telling you all about your people, your origin.

  Lot’s of people I know have gotten their results, and it’s fascinating. The info you receive breaks down your origin by percentage and region of the world. For example, yours might tell you that your origin is 43 percent East African, 23 percent Southern European, 11 percent Western European, and 2 percent Native American, etc. For good measure, there’s usually 1 percent “unidentified” in the mix. All that from a blob of spit.

  I haven’t gone through the process yet, but when I do, I’m really hoping it will confirm that I have substantial Italian (Sicilian) and Greek roots! Hey, with a name like Louie Giglio, what else would you expect?

  The point is there’s a growing fascination with origin. Who am I? Where did I come from? What does my family tree really look like? Do I have branches in the Middle East? Asia? Africa?

  Here’s a headline for you: because Christ hung on
that God-forsaken tree of the cross, you are invited to become part of a brand-new family tree. Yep. You still have to navigate your earthly family tree, but you can be born into a new family by faith in Jesus.

  The Gift of a New Family Tree

  The most apt description of what it means to be spiritually saved is the phrase born again . Granted, it was more prevalent to hear that phrase from people coming out of the Jesus Movement in the 1960s and the preaching of Billy Graham. And from the words of former President Jimmy Carter as he introduced the phrase to a broader culture in the 1970s, announcing to the world that he was “a born-again Christian.”

  Yet the term born again is not simply a mantra of Christian leaders. This is a revolutionary teaching of Jesus, Himself. When asked by a Jewish religious leader how he could find his way into the kingdom of God, Jesus answered, “You must be born again.” Nicodemus, the man who asked Jesus the question, was baffled. “How can I be born again now that I am a fully-grown man? I can’t enter my mom’s womb a second time!”

  For sure, a second physical birth was a crazy idea. But Jesus was talking about spiritual birth. He was pointing out the problem of sin (that it makes us spiritually dead) and the hope embraced by the good news (that Jesus had come to give spiritual life). That’s why Jesus said, “You must be born a second time.” Not born of the flesh, but of the Spirit .

  We don’t get into God’s family by being good enough or trying our best. And we don’t get left out of His family because we’ve been bad or we don’t think we deserve His love. God is an equal opportunity heavenly Father who has created each of us in His image and who loved us enough to give His Son so that each of us could be born again to brand-new, never-ending life!

  Galatians 4:4–7 describes this same mind-boggling truth. The summary of it is that God sent His Son to redeem people from a broken planet Earth, so these people would become His children. Fully adopted. Fully new. Fully alive. Full sons and daughters of a good and perfect Father.

  There is a catch. You must receive His gift. You must confess that you have fallen short of God’s best and accept the forgiveness the Father offers through the cross. When you do, Scripture says everything changes. The Spirit of God enters your life and brings your spirit to life. This new birth doesn’t simply place you on the membership role of the church or tip the scales of your bad deeds a little toward the good side. This new birth firmly grafts you into God’s family tree as a son or daughter.

  Let that settle into your soul.

  Remember, God is on a mission to restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children toward their fathers. This mission doesn’t start by fixing the issues in your human family tree. The process starts by God placing you into a new family, into a new relationship with Him.

  the power of forgiveness breaks your chains the moment you offer it.

  If you were to draw out your earthly family tree what would it look like? For some of you it would look pretty straightforward. Two sets of grandparents, mom and dad, me and my two sisters. Yeah, a few cousins and aunts and uncles—pretty simple. But others might need more paper to add in stepparents, half-siblings, or extra sets of step-grandparents. You might puzzle over what to do with names of people you’re technically still related to, but who are no longer on the scene. You might need an eraser to correct your mistakes before figuring it all out.

  Your family tree may look beautiful, with a solid trunk and healthy leaves. Or it may be bent by stormy winds, with cracked branches and fading leaves. Whatever it looks like, you’re stuck with it. That earthly family tree is a non-negotiable for you.

  But that’s not where your story ends. Thanks to Christ, you can be placed in a new tree. God, the heavenly Father has given you new life through God the Son by the work of God the Spirit. A triune God—Father, Son, and Spirit—is at the head of your tree, and you are a direct descendant! You’re not some third cousin twice removed who is barely sneaking into the kingdom of God, with everyone looking across heaven’s living room saying, “Who is that? How’d they get in here? Are we related?”

  No, if you are born again in Christ you can take a swab of your spiritual DNA and send it through the test of the Holy Spirit and the Word. You’ll get results back that will blow you away. We’ll dive more into the new you in later chapters, but suffice it to say the paternity test of heaven will come back positive. In Christ, your heavenly Father has brought you to life, and you are His.

  Just as He gave you life at your physical birth, seeing that you were conceived in your mother’s womb and knitting you together to His exact specifications, God the Father gave you your first spiritual breath when you were born again. His name is on your spiritual birth certificate. And He promises to be your Father every step of the way until you are with Him in heaven. What an awesome privilege to be called a child of the King!

  This is a game-changing reality. Even if there was little or no father’s blessing for you that came down your earthly family tree, you still have a better Father’s blessing coming down your new family tree. Right now, you are standing under the waterfall of the Father blessing of God.

  Way Bigger than Niagara

  The waterfall of God’s fatherly blessing is not like one of those thin, ribbon-like waterfalls you see on the side of the road while driving through the foothills. It’s more like Niagara Falls, or the great Victoria Falls in Zambia. His love is a like a torrent, relentless and unending, unconditional and pure, gently roaring His blessing over your life. And His love is pouring down on you right now.

  If you close your eyes for a moment, can you picture it? Can you see yourself standing under a steady flow of love, smiling in the crashing foam of a perfect Father’s blessing? In Christ, that’s exactly where you are. Here are some incredible facts about this blessing:

  You will always have enough of His blessing.

  You will never exhaust His love.

  You will never fully deplete His goodness.

  Every single day His mercy will awaken you.

  This reality, this constant waterfall of blessing, will fill you, heal you, and transform your wounded heart into a heart that’s new. And it’s going to do something else miraculous. This perfect Father’s blessing is going to allow you to reverse whatever curse has fallen on you.

  You are no longer going to live in such a way that you’re defined as “forsaken.” From now on, you are called beloved daughter. Beloved son. You will no longer face life from a deficit. You will face life with a sense of adequacy, knowing you have an abundant waterfall above you, the blessing constantly filling you with all you need.

  Your life is not going to be likened to a run-on-sentence of “what ifs” and “buts” and “only ifs.” You are going to know that you belong to the God of the universe, and that nothing can thwart His purpose and plans for your life. You are going to discover new power inside, the very power of the Spirit of God. And your eyes are going to be opened to understand that God’s power can do the one thing that for now seems impossible for you to do. Standing under this mind-blowing blessing, grafted into a new family tree, you are going to find the power to forgive your dad for all the hurt and wrong and pain he brought into your life.

  I get that this step may take some time. But I don’t buy into the thinking that it’s not possible for you to forgive your dad. You may be thinking,

  Louie, I was with you up to this point, but you simply don’t understand what I’ve been through. There’s no way I’m ever forgiving my dad after what he did to me.

  That kind of thinking reflects the old you , the one that was left behind, bruised, ignored, abused—forsaken. There is a new you on the scene. A loved and blessed and approved and accepted you—a new you who has a new name and a new family tree and a new Spirit within you.

  Think about it this way:

  If God can overwhelm the grave and rise from the dead,

  If He can cancel the debt of sin you owe,

  If He can make peace between y
ou and a Holy God,

  If He has the power to free you from death and raise you up to eternal life,

  If He can re-create you by the Spirit and make you a child . . .

  . . . then He can certainly give you power over your past. Jesus can be in and through you a curse-breaking force for your life and for the generations to come after you.

  It all begins with a supernatural word—forgiveness .

  The Power of Forgiveness

  That’s where your new story begins. Even Jesus said it from the cross about those who were hurling insults at Him. Looking at the very ones who drove the nails into His hands and feet, He said, “Father, forgive them because they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).

  And He’s spoken it to you, even though when you pushed back on His truth and ignored His love you did know what you were doing. The trajectory of your eternity began to change the moment you opened the door to God telling you that He forgives you. In the same way, when you’ve received God’s forgiveness, your healing finds its fullness when you allow God to help you reflect His forgiveness to those around you.

  But, Louie, my dad doesn’t deserve to be forgiven. My dad has never once even acknowledged his wrong. My dad wouldn’t even care if I wanted to forgive him. There’s no way. I don’t see that happening—me forgiving him. I’m willing to move on, but to forgive what he did to me, I don’t think I can do that.

  First, it’s important to underscore that when I say to “forgive” I’m not suggesting that you sweep the past under the rug. That you simply act like it didn’t happen or excuse it. No way! Forgiveness is not a free pass for the person who has wounded you. Forgiveness is rooted in Christ’s love and justice.