Love to hear from and know who is listening

We hear the term, forgive and forget, but how can we forget? Don’t you wish there was a delete button for your brain? We can choose to forgive the person who has hurt us and not allow the memory to control our lives. So in that sense, we can forgive and forget. It is very hard to do, but it is possible to forgive those you have hurt or wronged you. That being said the one person I have the most difficulty forgiving is myself! On March 8, 1988 my son Jerry Craig was born. He had a rare genetic disorder that caused him to be a bleeder and need frequent transfusions of blood platelets and had suppressed immune system. He lived for 3 months and spent only 1 day out of the hospital. The doctors told me that he would never have a normal life but with medical help he might survive a while longer, but they were unsure how to treat him. My wife and other two daughters were suffering because I was unable to provide for them both physically or emotionally because all my attention was focused on my sick son. So I made the difficult decision and told the hospital staff to treat my son as if he was a healthy infant. He got the care and nutrition that any every child his age would receive and within a week he got sick and passed away. For many years after his death I blamed myself. I could not forgive myself I felt like I had caused his death.

Psalm 103:12 ESV as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

Many people are trapped because they can’t forgive themselves. I don't think that I am alone. For years I felt trapped. Because I could never hear her my son offer me forgiveness, because he was no longer with me I felt trapped and unable to release myself from my guilt. Why can’t you release yourself from your sin? Is it because the weight is too much? Because you know you haven’t changed? Because the ripple effects of your sin can’t be reversed? I have good news! You don’t need to forgive yourself, because you can’t forgive yourself. There is no category of self-forgiveness in the Bible. And what a freeing truth! Your shame and guilt does not depend on your ability to forgive yourself. There are two—and only two—biblical categories of forgiveness: forgiveness of others and God’s forgiveness. Horizontal and vertical. Horizontal forgiveness marks us as Christians. Seeking to forgive of others is not optional. Forgiving one another is not optional.

Colossians 3:12-13 ESV Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

As important as horizontal forgiveness is, the forgiveness of those who have hurt you, even more fundamental is vertical forgiveness, which comes from God alone. After committing the heinous double sin of adultery and murder against Bathsheba and Uriah, David cries out to God.

Psalm 51:4 ESV Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.

David realizes that as awful as his sin is horizontally, it’s much worse vertically. He has profoundly offended God by devaluing one life and snuffing out another. But what never hear David struggling with? The process of self-forgiveness. He doesn’t entertain for a second that he must forgive himself. Once he’s sought forgiveness from God, he must release himself from his sin. So forgive and forget your sins because the Almighty God already has!

Support the show

Love to hear from and know who is listening

What is at the center of your life? What is it that you strive for? What is the one thing that anchors your life? I would venture to guess that a large portion of the world centers their lives around their careers and the size of their bank accounts. Some may focus their lives around their children. Behind every Olympic athlete is a parent or two, who have encouraged and pushed their child through tens of thousands of hours of grueling training to keep them on track. Jim and Cecille Adrian watched their 23-year-old son Nathan qualify for the 100 meter freestyle with the fastest time in the preliminary rounds. They drove about 100,000 miles in four years, taking vacations in about 15 different cities in the US, and flew 100,000 air miles or more “and that's just the start," Jim Adrian told ABC News. "It wasn't cheap, but it was worth it.” On the day this parent will stand at the Judgment seat of Christ to receive his rewards, do you think his investment in his child will pay off?

2 Corinthians 5:10 ESV For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

So back to my original question, what is the center of your life? There are 31,174 total verses in the Bible. Psalm 118:8-9 are the 15,587th and 15,588th verses. The very center of the Bible. Do you suppose that it is just random chance, or maybe it’s God’s way of winking at us, but these two verses in the very middle of the entire Bible seem to capture well the bottom line of faith. Where the rubber meets the road.

Psalm 118: 8-9 ESV It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes.

There are really only two basic religions among men, one of which is man-centered and the other one God-centered. One is based on evolution; one on creation. One is humanism; the other is theism. The Bible begins by setting forth God as Creator in Genesis 1:1 and ends by invoking the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ in Revelation 22:21.

Revelation 22:21 ESV The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen.

But mankind’s greatest and most basic sin has always been that of seeking to replace God with man. Ye shall be as gods, was the lie that Satin told Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden which resulted in the fall of man.

Genesis 3:5 ESV For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

Paul teaches us in Romans 3:23, For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. In Gods eyes all people are created equal. It's only people who elevate and devalue other people. The center of the Bible is teaching us an important lesson; TRUST GOD, not men. We have been given a gift of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. Don't let faith in men keep you from the gates of heaven. Put your faith and trust in the One who loved you and died for you. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life! It is infinitely and eternally better to trust in the Lord, than to put your confidence in men.

Support the show

Love to hear from and know who is listening

A good friend of mine recently made a post on social media stating that she believes we are living in the end times and we should be careful not to be deceived. She went on to say, as we get to the end of the year, she thinks about the end times, and wonders if she will live to see it. There are so many things that the Bible talks about, that is happening in our world today. She asked the question, do think you will live to see another year completed or will Jesus return to rapture his church?

Luke 21:8-9 ESV And he said, See that you are not led astray. For many will come in my name, saying, I am he! And, The time is at hand! Do not go after them. And when you hear of wars and tumults, do not be terrified, for these things must first take place, but the end will not be at once.

At times I wish Jesus would return today, so I would no longer have to struggle with my sin and the worries of this world. However, on the other hand I feel selfish for those I know and love that will be left behind when Jesus raptures the church out of this world, because it may seem difficult now but after you remove all the Christians from the world it will become truly evil! Do you worry about it or do you have the faith of knowing where you will be? Are you saved? What does that mean to be saved? I ask this question because another person online confronted me and said, if Jesus freed you from sin, what would be the reason for the struggle? When a person is saved, All things are new. This is a quote from 2 Corinthians 5:17 that says Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. I posted one final reply in which I said, I am only human and I still struggle with the fact that I fail and fall into sin daily. I know I am forgiven, but if you don't struggle with sin, your just not telling the truth. Being saved doesn't mean your suddenly a saint! Even the apostle Paul struggled with sin and his fleshly desires.

Romans 7:15 ESV For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.

The Bible is clear in several passages how to receive salvation. It doesn’t mean you are perfect after you are saved, but it does mean that you are forgiven and saved from the penalty of sin by God’s grace. When we accept salvation, we are saved from the penalty of sin. Jesus paid for our sin on the cross, and when a person trusts Him for salvation, that person is forgiven and justified before God. This is a once-for-all transaction. However, Christians still struggle with the power of sin in their lives. Even though they are forgiven, they are not perfect. While we are still alive we are being sanctified. The same apostle, Paul, that told else he struggled with sin goes on to tell us how we have been saved from the penalty of sin and he urges us to live in that reality, by not letting sin continue to control your actions.

Romans 6:11-13 ESV So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.

I am saved, I am forgiven, not perfect! 1 Peter tells us that we must put away all malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy and slander and like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation!

Support the show