Forgive

Colossians 3:13

Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

Forgiving someone has times that it’s really easy.  For example, someone accidently steps on your toe.  They apologize and ask for forgiveness.  No problem, easy to forgive.  Other times, it really isn’t that easy.  Sometimes, it’s actually almost impossible, or at least that’s how it feels. 

I want you to think about a time that you did something wrong.  Something you knew you shouldn’t have done.  Maybe you struggled with an addiction, maybe you cheated on someone, you may have even committed a crime of some sort. 

Did you ask forgiveness for what you did?  Did the person you wronged easily forgive you? 

Each and every day, every single one of us sins.  Our sins nail Christ to the cross, over and over and over again. While we might not have been there when Christ was crucified, every single one of us is guilty of murdering him by our sins!

And yet, he has forgiven us!  So then, we are instructed to forgive as the Lord has forgiven us.  If any of you are holding a grievance against someone else, I encourage you today, to reach out to them and truly forgive them.

Thurs Devo: Great and Marvelous!

Last week we saw how God called His people in the last days to endure patiently, even to the point of death. He promised blessings for it. This week, we see God follow through on His promise!

Revelation 15:1-4     I saw in heaven another great and marvelous sign: seven angels with the seven last plagues—last, because with them God’s wrath is completed. ² And I saw what looked like a sea of glass glowing with fire and, standing beside the sea, those who had been victorious over the beast and its image and over the number of its name. They held harps given them by God ³ and sang the song of God’s servant Moses and of the Lamb:

“Great and marvelous are your deeds,
    Lord God Almighty.
Just and true are your ways,
    King of the nations.
⁴ Who will not fear you, Lord,
    and bring glory to your name?
For you alone are holy.
All nations will come
    and worship before you,
for your righteous acts have been revealed.”

Those who endure patiently will be victorious and live a great and marvelous life with God in heaven. They will understand, experience, and worship God for all that He is!

I haven’t patiently endured the last days, but Joe and I have endured (sometimes patiently and sometimes not) infertility for over 8 years (as many of you already know). However, come June 18^th, the 2 foster kids we’ve gotten to know this past year will be placed with us for adoption! They are a sibling pair – 3 ½ year old boy and a 2 year old girl.

We are praising God for His help to endure as we awaited His timing, His plan and His children!!! Victory (both great and small) belongs to the Lord God Almighty! He is Great and Marvelous! 

Alice

Do I Make You Proud?

I am a special messenger from Christ Jesus to you Gentiles. I bring you the Good News so that I might present you as an acceptable offering to God, made holy by the Holy Spirit. So I have reason to be enthusiastic about all Christ Jesus has done through me in my service to God.  Romans 15:16-17

About a year ago, I sat down with my mom just to talk about life in general.  I feel incredibly blessed to have her as my mom, and am so thankful for all that she taught me.  I thanked both her and my Dad for loving me, and thanked God for giving me such wonderful parents.  Then, I asked her a question that probably caught her off guard.  My question was quite simply, “Do I make you proud?”  She happily smiled, and said yes understanding where my heart was in asking.  Like most children, I did not make life easy for my mom, and yes, I certainly took more than I gave her.  So the genesis of my question was that I understood both how challenging I was to raise and what she had sacrificed for me.  As such, the question meant did the man I had become measure up to the hope the hard work and sacrifice both her and my father made when God decided to make me their child. Many might say God blessed them with me, but again, I feel like I got the far better end of the deal.

God gave us so much in grace through Jesus Christ, and through this rebirth, our mission is to dedicate our lives in servitude toward Him.  When we were first forgiven of our sins by God, it was liberating.  Yet, we may lose perspective of the weight our forgiveness carried.  The sacrifice by Jesus Christ was immense, and none of us could ever hope to repay the debt.  This was where the Gentiles were when Paul gave them the Good News.  However in Paul’s mind, it was not just about forgiveness. It was about the hope he had in them having been transformed through Christ.  They would not only know who God was but also joyfully serve Him sharing the Good News to others.  This was the hope instilled in Paul when on the road to Damascus Jesus appeared to Him.  Thus the gift of grace much like the love and sacrifices our parents offered to us are not to be repaid.  They are to be remembered and honored as we to give to others greater than we were once given.

Our lives are to be loving offerings of gratitude to God for all that He has given us.  Deuteronomy 12:28 says, “Be careful to obey all my commands, so that all will go well with you and your children after you, because you will be doing what is good and pleasing to the Lord your God.” This is what we aspire to be as God’s children.  Do not take God’s gift of grace for granted.  Instead, make all that you do as ‘an acceptable offering to God, made holy by the Holy Spirit.’  Do you humbly accept what Jesus Christ’s sacrifice?  Is your life given in servitude for all God has given you?  My prayer is that our lives are reflective such that when we look up to Heaven, God will smile when we ask, “Do I make you proud?”  Amen.

Tues Devo: Same plan

Acts 20:28-20 “Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears.” (NASB)

Hello,

Did you know this is the only section in scripture to use the phrase “savage wolves”? OK, not the point of today’s devo…….

As we fight the spiritual battle that we are in, we sometimes miss the predictable patterns of Satan and his allies. The enemy is looking for a quick sequence of two things: 1) Your forward spiritual momentum in some way and then 2) You being momentarily away from the positive influence(s) that brought that spiritual momentum.

Paul knew this – he knew that as soon as he stepped away, Satan would step in and try to destroy what God was doing. Paul knew it in advance – he spent 3 years admonishing them day and night (and you thought your parents/spouse were all over you….) to try and build up their resistance and reinforce what God wanted from their lives on a daily basis.

I know I have seen this in my life too. I see progress or get motivation, then not long after I find discouragement in my life that goes against the forward momentum I was building spiritually. Satan’s plan has not changed. But neither has our defense! We must stay connected to the things that bring us the positive spiritual momentum. This could be people or things we are listening/watching. But it certainly also includes constant prayer and frequent intake of the Bible.

So – Satan has a plan….and he has stuck with it for longer than any of us have been alive. But our plan to be on guard has been around just as long, we just need to follow the plan!

Have a blessed day,

Will Hill