Category: Forgiveness

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The Eternal Love of God

Have you ever had a hard time believing that you are loved? I have!

If that’s where you are today or where you have been I want to share some verses on God’s love with you. I know I have shared some of these before but we can never have too much love. Agree?

“Yes, I am sure that nothing can separate us from God’s love—not death, life, angels, or ruling spirits. I am sure that nothing now, nothing in the future, no powers, nothing above us or nothing below us—nothing in the whole created world—will ever be able to separate us from the love God has shown us in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38-39 ERV

Do you see that – NOTHING! Nothing now or in the future can separate us from the God’s love. Absolutely nothing.

“We were weak and could not help ourselves. Then Christ came at the right time and gave His life for all sinners. 7 No one is willing to die for another person, but for a good man someone might be willing to die. 8 But God showed His love to us. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:6-8 NLV

You might think that the things in your past or even in your present make you unlovable but God sees more than our actions and our failures and He sees someone He loves. He has loved us at our worst and He loves us just the same at our best. His love is unconditional!

“Love does not give up. Love is kind. Love is not jealous. Love does not put itself up as being important. Love has no pride. 5 Love does not do the wrong thing. Love never thinks of itself. Love does not get angry. Love does not remember the suffering that comes from being hurt by someone. 6 Love is not happy with sin. Love is happy with the truth. 7 Love takes everything that comes without giving up. Love believes all things. Love hopes for all things. Love keeps on in all things.

8 Love never comes to an end.” I Corinthians 13:4-8 NLV

Love was and still is God’s plan. It’s who He is. Love isn’t a emotion that comes and goes. Love isn’t goose bumps and tingles. Love is God!

“The person who tells of Him in front of men and says that Jesus is the Son of God, God is living in that one and that one is living by the help of God. 16 We have come to know and believe the love God has for us. God is love. If you live in love, you live by the help of God and God lives in you.” I John 4:15-16 NLV

God desires to always be here for us, providing us with comfort and encouragement, He gives us hope. He isn’t out to condemn us!

“Our Lord Jesus Christ and God our Father loves us. Through His loving-favor He gives us comfort and hope that lasts forever. 17 May He give your hearts comfort and strength to say and do every good thing.” II Thessalonians 2:16-17 NLV

When we accept His wonderful gift, Jesus Christ, as our Savior we receive a new life free of condemnation. We’ve talked about this in days past God chooses to forget our sins and put them as far as the east is from the west. We are forgiven.

“So now anyone who is in Christ Jesus is not judged guilty. 2 That is because in Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit that brings life made you free. It made you free from the law that brings sin and death.” Romans 8:1-2 ERV

It is impossible to pen the words that can adequately express the love that God has for us. It is written in every book of the Bible – in fact, the Bible is God’s love letter to us. So I will end with a prayer that Apostle Paul recorded – it was his prayer us and it is my prayer for you.

“I pray that Christ will live in your hearts because of your faith. I pray that your life will be strong in love and be built on love. 18 And I pray that you and all God’s holy people will have the power to understand the greatness of Christ’s love—how wide, how long, how high, and how deep that love is. 19 Christ’s love is greater than anyone can ever know, but I pray that you will be able to know that love. Then you can be filled with everything God has for you.

20 With God’s power working in us, he can do much, much more than anything we can ask or think of. “ Ephesians 3:17-20 ERV

God loves you and so do I!

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How Far Is East From West

I’d like to pose a question to you this morning. How far is the East from the West?

If you start to travel north from where you are now, how far will you go before you are heading south? You will only go north until you come to the North Pole and then you will head south to the South Pole. Once at the South Pole the process of going north will repeat again. Now, how far east do you have to go before you begin going west? Picture a globe of the world in your mind, head east, keep going until you start going west and then stop. Unlike north/south travel east/west will continue on. A remedial example but it’s pertinent to today’s verses.

“With all my heart I praise the Lord, and with all that I am I praise his holy name!
2 With all my heart I praise the Lord! I will never forget how kind he has been.

3 The Lord forgives our sins, heals us when we are sick, 4 and protects us from death. His kindness and love are a crown on our heads.
5 Each day that we live, he provides for our needs and gives us the strength of a young eagle.

6 For all who are mistreated, the Lord brings justice.
7 He taught his Law to Moses and showed all Israel what he could do.

8 The Lord is merciful! He is kind and patient, and his love never fails.
9 The Lord won’t always be angry and point out our sins; 10 he doesn’t punish us as our sins deserve.

11 How great is God’s love for all who worship him? Greater than the distance between heaven and earth!
12 How far has the Lord taken our sins from us? Farther than the distance from east to west!” Psalm 103:1-12 CEV

This is one of my favorite Psalms and I’ve only listed about half the verses in the Psalm. I encourage you to read the whole Psalm and have provided a link for you here. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+103&version=CEV

Each morning I spent time thanking the Father for His goodness and blessings. Look at this, forgiveness from all our sins – healing all our diseases – protection – strength – justice.

I had grown up with teachings on forgiveness. After all that’s the reason Jesus came. He died so I could be forgiven. But I wasn’t as familiar with these other blessings, not familiar at all. In fact, I had heard it said that God would make you sick to teach you a lesson and that He might cause your business to fail to keep you from becoming greedy. God, the Father, has been blamed for so much that He has never done.

He is patient, kind, his love never runs out. He’s not angry with us and He doesn’t give us what we deserve. In fact, He removes our sins from us. That means when He forgives, he forgets! The worse thing that you’ve ever done has been forgiven and removed. Amazing!

God wants relationship with us; he’s not holding us at arm’s length. Just the opposite. He is drawing us in, welcoming us, embracing us. No matter or circumstance He is here to provide us with what we need. Yesterday I needed strength, today I need protection, tomorrow I may need healing – whatever my need the Father wants to take care of it.

No wonder King David said with all my heart I will praise the Lord. God hasn’t changed since David’s time so let’s join in on that praise today!

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Forgiveness is Important

For over a week now the Lord has really been impressing me with how important forgiveness is. This truth brings me to focus on how much I have been forgiven.

To the Lord, sin is sin. We sometimes refer to the “little white lie” or “one of the big sins” but that’s not how God sees is at all. In fact in James we’re told if we break one we are guilty of all.

“But if you treat some people better than others, you have done wrong, and the Scriptures teach that you have sinned.

10 If you obey every law except one, you are still guilty of breaking them all.” James 2:9-10 CEV

This isn’t an indictment to show us how bad we are but it is a revelation that not one of us can earn our own salvation, we all need Jesus!

Bringing us back to forgiveness we must understand that as the Lord forgives everyone of our sins and shortcomings we must also forgive.

This morning I was reading a devotional by Max Lucado and it hit home. I’d like to share it with you.

“A Grace Giver

Forgiveness is not foolishness. Forgiveness, at its core, is choosing to see your offender with different eyes. By the way, how can we grace-recipients do anything less? Dare we ask God for grace when we refuse to give it? This is a huge issue in Scripture! Jesus was tough on sinners who refused to forgive other sinners.
Remember his story in Matthew 18, about the servant freshly forgiven a debt of millions who refused to forgive a debt equal to a few dollars? He stirred the wrath of God. “You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt. Shouldn’t you have mercy just as I had mercy on you?” (Matthew 18:32). In the final sum, we give grace because we’ve been given grace. And we’ve been given grace so we can freely give it. See your enemies as God’s child and revenge as God’s job.
From Facing Your Giants”

Each of us will have opportunities today to forgive, I pray we are grace-filled in each situation.

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How Hard is It For You to Forgive?

How hard is it for you to forgive? Sounds like a loaded question doesn’t it?

When we look at forgiveness from a strictly personal, human perspective it can seem almost impossible to forgive some and easy to forgive others. It all depends on how deeply we have been hurt or wronged.

Forgiveness seems to be based on our feelings and we often don’t want to take responsibility for letting them go.

In this morning’s reading Jesus was teaching on this very thing.

“Jesus said to his disciples:

There will always be something that causes people to sin. But anyone who causes them to sin is in for trouble. A person who causes even one of my little followers to sin 2 would be better off thrown into the ocean with a heavy stone tied around their neck. 3 So be careful what you do.

Correct any followers of mine who sin, and forgive the ones who say they are sorry. 4 Even if one of them mistreats you seven times in one day and says, “I am sorry,” you should still forgive that person.

5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Make our faith stronger!”

6 Jesus replied:

If you had faith no bigger than a tiny mustard seed, you could tell this mulberry tree to pull itself up, roots and all, and to plant itself in the ocean. And it would!

7 If your servant comes in from plowing or from taking care of the sheep, would you say, “Welcome! Come on in and have something to eat”? 8 No, you wouldn’t say that. You would say, “Fix me something to eat. Get ready to serve me, so I can have my meal. Then later on you can eat and drink.” 9 Servants don’t deserve special thanks for doing what they are supposed to do. 10 And that’s how it should be with you. When you’ve done all you should, then say, “We are merely servants, and we have simply done our duty.”
Luke 17:1-10 CEV

Jesus talked to his disciples about forgiveness. They tried to make it a “faith” issue. Jesus quickly refuted that and told them they didn’t need more faith – even a small amount of faith was sufficient to make earth moving changes.

What he did talk to them about was their obedience. Verses 1 through 5 don’t seem to tie together with verses 6 through 10 but read it again and you will see the correlation. Jesus starts in verse 6 telling them their faith is sufficient and then immediately goes into a teaching on obedience, the obedience of a servant.

The disciples, servants of Jesus, are being challenged to obey what the Master has said. Forgive!

Take forgiveness out of the realm of feelings and place it where it belongs – it is an act of obedience! We don’t need to struggle with doing something we are commanded to do. Just obey!

Obey because it’s what the Father has instructed us to do. Obey and know that you have done your duty as a servant of the most high God.

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