Scriptures Forgiveness Quotes

He paused, twisting his goatee, considering the law in Deuteronomy that forbade clothes with mixed fibers. A problematic bit of Scripture. A matter that required thought. "Only the devil wants man to have a wide range of lightweight and comfortable styles to choose from," he murmured at last, trying out a new proverb. "Although there may be no forgiveness for polyester. On this one matter, Satan and the Lord are in agreement.

This is what the LORD requires of every man; to do justice, to love mercy and to humbly work with God.

The trust of those in dark need is forgiving work.

So where does Stan fit in this equation?... We are told to meditate on scripture, even the hald that details the consequences of evil, the consequent of Jericho and all. Not to pretend out God has somehow changed since the time of Christ. Obviously, Paul's idea of admirable and noble is quite different from ours. God forgives us, Bill. We have mocked His victory by whitewashing the enemy for the sake of our neighbirs approval." No Greater Love has any man...

Catholicism From my perspective as a former follower of Santeria (which is the worship of saints), Catholicism is the worship of the saints, which are idols, and the worship of Mary. How is it that you can confess your sins to man and your sins are forgiven, or pray to statues and they take your prayers to the Lord? How is it that saying three Hail Mary’s and three Our Father’s forgives our sins? How is it that praying the rosary gets you closer to God? What is this place called Purgatory, as the Scripture says in 2 Corinthians 5:8: “We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.” As well, Jesus told the thief on the Cross, in Luke 23:43: “I assure you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (NLT). Jesus said Paradise, not Purgatory.

I somehow missed the scripture that reads 'Forgive your sexual abuser and let him eat at family dinners' when I was in Sunday school.

When people mistakenly believe a lie, we have a responsibility—even a commission (Matthew 28:18-20)—to gently and lovingly point them to God’s truth. What is truth? It is that God alone is the one means of forgiveness of sin. He alone is the one way to eternal life. “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6).

God is not angry with you and never has been. He loves you with an everlasting love. Salvation is not a question of “turn or burn.” We’re burning already, but we don’t have to be! Redemption! The life and death of Christ showed us how far God would go to extend forgiveness and invitation. His resurrection marked the death of death and the evacuation of Hades. My hope is in Christ, who rightfully earned his judgment seat and whose verdict is restorative justice, that is to say, mercy. Hope. That is my bias, and I believe that Scripture, tradition, and experience confirm it. I

For a time he read his Neil Diamond bible by the firelight. He paused, twisting nervously at his goatee, considering the law in Deuteronomy that forbade clothes with mixed fibers. A problematic bit of Scripture. A matter that required thought. "Only the devil wants man to have a wide range of lightweight and comfortable styles to choose from," he murmured at last, trying out a new proverb. "Although there may be no forgiveness for polyester. On this matter, Satan and the Lord are in agreement.

Genuine forgiveness and reconciliation are two-person transactions that are enabled by apologies. Some, particularly within the Christian worldview, have taught forgiveness without an apology. They often quote the words of Jesus, “If you do not forgive men their trespasses neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” Thus, they say to the wife whose husband has been unfaithful and continues in his adulterous affair, “You must forgive him, or God will not forgive you.” Such an interpretation of Jesus’ teachings fails to reckon with the rest of the scriptural teachings on forgiveness. The Christian is instructed to forgive others in the same manner that God forgives us. How does God forgive us? The Scriptures say that if we confess our sins, God will forgive our sins. Nothing in the Old or New Testaments indicates that God forgives the sins of people who do not confess and repent of their sins. While a pastor encourages a wife to forgive her erring husband while he still continues in his wrongdoing, the minister is requiring of the wife something that God Himself does not do. Jesus’ teaching is that we are to be always willing to forgive, as God is always willing to forgive, those who repent… While a pastor encourages a wife to forgive her erring husband while he still continues in his wrongdoing, the minister is requiring of the wife something that God Himself does not do. Jesus’ teaching is that we are to be always willing to forgive, as God is always willing to forgive, those who repent…

The righteousness of the Kingdom is a righteousness which only God Himself can give. Perfect purity, perfect honesty, perfect love, perfect forgiveness: what man is there anywhere in any dispensation who can live such a life?

We don’t want people to understand forgiveness or prayer or mission or justice only intellectually. We want people who can forgive, who can hear and respond to God, who actually know Him. We want people who have hearts that break for our world and the people in it and do something about it. We want the kind of people in our communities who resemble the people we see in Scripture.

forgiveness always heals; it does not matter whether you are Hindu, Buddhist, Catholic or Jewish. Forgiveness is one of the patterns that is always true, it is part of The Story. There is no specifically Catholic way to feed the hungry or to steward the earth.

There I sat, in that great city, guiltless of crime, yet not daring to worship God in any of the churches. I heard the bells ringing for afternoon service, and, with contemptuous sarcasm, I said, "Will the preachers take for their text, 'Proclaim liberty to the captive, and the opening of prison doors to them that are bound'? or will they preach from the text, 'Do unto others as ye would they should do unto you'?" Oppressed Poles and Hungarians could find a safe refuge in that city; John Mitchell was free to proclaim in the City Hall his desire for "a plantation well stocked with slaves;" but there I sat, an oppressed American, not daring to show my face. God forgive the black and bitter thoughts I indulged on that Sabbath day! The Scripture says, "Oppression makes even a wise man mad;" and I was not wise.

God only has one Son whom He gave for all—so He and He alone must be the object of worship and the means of forgiveness from sin. The new, twisted, Emergent theology is not only heresy; it is false! Jesus could say He is the (only) way to eternal life—because He is the only way!

Because of the Resurrection, our natural reaction must be to get past our emotional reactions as quickly as possible and reflect on what happened in light of the cross and the resurrection and our own baptisms into that defining reality – to the life-giving and life-affirming waters of forgiveness and reconciliation.

I remember preaching on Jesus’s call to the practice of radical forgiveness and being challenged by a church member who said, “Yeah, but the Bible says, ‘An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.’ ” I had to explain to him that a Christian can’t cite Moses to silence Jesus. When we try to embrace Biblicism by placing all authority in a flat reading of Scripture and giving the Old Testament equal authority with Christ, God thunders from heaven, “No! This is my beloved Son! Listen to him!

We must read, mediate and affirm the writings of Holy Scriptures, to partake in the divine nature and overcome the struggles of life.

Brothers, the Scriptures tell us that in the Church "you have come" (right now!) to these seven sublime realities: 1) to the city of God, 2) to myriads of angels, 3) to fellow believers, 4) to God, 5) to the Church Triumphant, 6) to Jesus, and 7) to forgiveness! If this does not create a wellspring of thanksgiving in your hearts and a longing for fellowship in the visible Church, nothing will!

I am broke. What I've found in being a priest is that we're all broken. Fallen is perhaps a more scriptural concept, but usually what falls gets broken, so it's all the same." The up side is, he promises we'll be made whole in heaven. 'Til then, we keep seeking him, keep trusting him, keep letting him have his way with us. That's our job." "Yeah, fine, but what's his job?" "His job is to keep forgiving us and keep loving us. That's why, when he gives us something tough to do, he doesn't turn his back and walk away. He sticks with us, sees us through—but only if we ask him to. If we ask, he supplies everything we need.

Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, 'This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.

Most churches do not grow beyond the spiritual health of their leadership. Many churches have a pastor who is trying to lead people to a Savior he has yet to personally encounter. If spiritual gifting is no proof of authentic faith, then certainly a job title isn't either. You must have a clear sense of calling before you enter ministry. Being a called man is a lonely job, and many times you feel like God has abandoned you in your ministry. Ministry is more than hard. Ministry is impossible. And unless we have a fire inside our bones compelling us, we simply will not survive. Pastoral ministry is a calling, not a career. It is not a job you pursue. If you don’t think demons are real, try planting a church! You won’t get very far in advancing God’s kingdom without feeling resistance from the enemy. If I fail to spend two hours in prayer each morning, the devil gets the victory through the day. Once a month I get away for the day, once a quarter I try to get out for two days, and once a year I try to get away for a week. The purpose of these times is rest, relaxation, and solitude with God. A pastor must always be fearless before his critics and fearful before his God. Let us tremble at the thought of neglecting the sheep. Remember that when Christ judges us, he will judge us with a special degree of strictness. The only way you will endure in ministry is if you determine to do so through the prevailing power of the Holy Spirit. The unsexy reality of the pastorate is that it involves hard work—the heavy-lifting, curse-ridden, unyielding employment of your whole person for the sake of the church. Pastoral ministry requires dogged, unyielding determination, and determination can only come from one source—God himself. Passive staff members must be motivated. Erring elders and deacons must be confronted. Divisive church members must be rebuked. Nobody enjoys doing such things (if you do, you should be not be a pastor!), but they are necessary in order to have a healthy church over the long haul. If you allow passivity, laziness, and sin to fester, you will soon despise the church you pastor. From the beginning of sacred Scripture (Gen. 2:17) to the end (Rev. 21:8), the penalty for sin is death. Therefore, if we sin, we should die. But it is Jesus, the sinless one, who dies in our place for our sins. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus died to take to himself the penalty of our sin. The Bible is not Christ-centered because it is generally about Jesus. It is Christ-centered because the Bible’s primary purpose, from beginning to end, is to point us toward the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus for the salvation and sanctification of sinners. Christ-centered preaching goes much further than merely providing suggestions for how to live; it points us to the very source of life and wisdom and explains how and why we have access to him. Felt needs are set into the context of the gospel, so that the Christian message is not reduced to making us feel better about ourselves. If you do not know how sinful you are, you feel no need of salvation. Sin-exposing preaching helps people come face-to-face with their sin and their great need for a Savior. We can worship in heaven, and we can talk to God in heaven, and we can read our Bibles in heaven, but we can’t share the gospel with our lost friends in heaven. “Would your city weep if your church did not exist?” It was crystal-clear for me. Somehow, through fear or insecurity, I had let my dreams for our church shrink. I had stopped thinking about the limitless things God could do and had been distracted by my own limitations. I prayed right there that God would forgive me of my small-mindedness. I asked God to forgive my lack of faith that God could use a man like me to bring the message of the gospel through our missionary church to our lost city. I begged God to renew my heart and mind with a vision for our city that was more like Christ's.

True transcendence always includes the previous stages and does not dismiss them or punish them, as most reforms and revolutions have done in history. This is true reconciliation, healing or forgiveness and always characterizes mature believers. They afterward seem to thank God for the pain and the trial.   good

Every disciple is a believer, but not every believer is necessarily a disciple. Anything short of discipleship, however, is settling for less than what God really desires for us. Loving God more than anyone or anything else is the very foundation of being a disciple. If you want to live your Christian life to its fullest, then love Jesus more than anyone or anything else. Either you will have harmony with God and friction with people, or you will have harmony with people and friction with God. You become a disciple in the biblical sense only when you are totally and completely committed to Jesus Christ and His Word. As a true disciple, your life won’t only be characterized by practical results and a hunger for Scripture, but you also will have love for others — especially fellow believers. Without all of these characteristics, you can’t really claim to be His disciple. A person who has been with Jesus will boldly share his or her faith. A person who has been with Jesus will be a person of prayer. A person who has been with Jesus will be persecuted. If for you, the Christian life is all about feeling good and having everything go your way, then you won’t like being a disciple. Being a follower of Christ is the most joyful and exciting life there is. But it also can be the most challenging life there is. It’s a life lived out under the command of someone other than yourself. Most prayers are not answered because they are outside the will of God. Once we have discovered God’s will, we can then pray aggressively and confidently for it. We can pray, believing it will happen, because we know it is not something we have dreamed. A forgiven person will be a forgiving person. A true disciple will harbor no grudge toward another. The disciple knows it will hinder his or her prayer life and walk with God. It is far better to sit down for an hour and talk genuinely with one person than to rattle off trite clichés to scores of people. Attending more Bible studies, more prayer meetings, reading more Christian books, and listening to more teaching without an outlet for the truth will cause us to spiritually decay. We need to take what God has given us and use it constructively in the lives of others. You were placed on earth to know God. Everything else is secondary. The more we know God, the more we should want to make Him known to a lost world. Your life belongs to God. You don’t share your time and talents with Him; He shares them with you! He owns you and everything about you. You need to recognize and acknowledge that fact.

There are two choices: to be human, made in the image of God, with Jesus; warp to be in human, consumed with greed and on aware of the pain that is inflicted upon others. Put in simple options, it is to be human and forgive, make peace in spite of all hatred, or to be in human and kill, dividing the spoils. To be dead before you die.

Manifest in this trade (commercial sale of indulgences via bankers) at the same time was a pernicious tendency in the Roman Catholic system, for the trade in indulgences was not an excess or an abuse but the direct consequence of the nomistic degradation of the gospel. That the Reformation started with Luther’s protest against this traffic in indulgences proves its religious origin and evangelical character. At issue here was nothing less than the essential character of the gospel, the core of Christianity, the nature of true piety. And Luther was the man who, guided by experience in the life of his own soul, again made people understand the original and true meaning of the gospel of Christ. Like the “righteousness of God,” so the term “penitence” had been for him one of the most bitter words of Holy Scripture. But when from Romans 1:17 he learned to know a “righteousness by faith,” he also learned “the true manner of penitence.” He then understood that the repentance demanded in Matthew 4:17 had nothing to do with the works of satisfaction required in the Roman institution of confession, but consisted in “a change of mind in true interior contrition” and with all its benefits was itself a fruit of grace. In the first seven of his ninety-five theses and further in his sermon on “Indulgences and Grace” (February 1518), the sermon on “Penitence” (March 1518), and the sermon on the “Sacrament of Penance” (1519), he set forth this meaning of repentance or conversion and developed the glorious thought that the most important part of penitence consists not in private confession (which cannot be found in Scripture) nor in satisfaction (for God forgives sins freely) but in true sorrow over sin, in a solemn resolve to bear the cross of Christ, in a new life, and in the word of absolution, that is, the word of the grace of God in Christ. The penitent arrives at forgiveness of sins, not by making amends (satisfaction) and priestly absolution, but by trusting the word of God, by believing in God’s grace. It is not the sacrament but faith that justifies. In that way Luther came to again put sin and grace in the center of the Christian doctrine of salvation. The forgiveness of sins, that is, justification, does not depend on repentance, which always remains incomplete, but rests in God’s promise and becomes ours by faith alone.

God I am a sinner.  I have done so many wrongs, in my life.  I have wronged many people, unaware. I have hurt so many people, it wasn’t my intention.  I have made so many mistakes , without thinking. I am no saint, and I am not perfect. I have fallen into temptation many times. Father forgive me. Take away the pain, I have caused to others. Give me the pure heart to love and forgive everyone and may your love be found in me. Please help me with the sins, that I am battling to overcome. Give me strength to fight my demons and dark pleasures. Guide me to path of righteousness. Let me not be judgmental towards others. Let me not curse or speak foul of anyone. There is no person who should shed a tear, because of me. There is no person who should be heart broken , because of me. In Jesus name Amen.  Matthew 26:41 | 1 John 5:16 | 2 Chronicles 7:14-15

True mercy toward others, as with true forgiveness, requires a Christian disposition. As Christ said, even the sinners love their friends. It is easy to show kindness to people who are kind to us. It is easy to be charitable to those who are agreeable to us. The completely counterintuitive, radical proposal of Christianity, the thing that differs from every other world religion and makes us look like fools according to Scripture, is forgiveness of our enemies.

Why do so many white people love the death penalty?” Portia asked. “It’s in the water. We grow up with it. We hear it at home, at church, at school, among friends. This is the Bible Belt, Portia, eye for an eye and all that.” “What about the New Testament and Jesus’s sermons on forgiveness?” “It’s not convenient. He also preached love first, tolerance, acceptance, equality. But most Christians I know are quite good at cherry-picking their way through the Holy Scriptures.

What we feel and how we feel is far more important than what we think and how we think. Feeling is the stuff of which our consciousness is made, the atmosphere in which all our thinking and all our conduct is bathed. All the motives which govern and drive our lives are emotional. Love and hate, anger and fear, curiosity and joy are the springs of all that is most noble and most detestable in the history of men and nations. The opening sentence of a sermon is an opportunity. A good introduction arrests me. It handcuffs me and drags me before the sermon, where I stand and hear a Word that makes me both tremble and rejoice. The best sermon introductions also engage the listener immediately. It’s a rare sermon, however, that suffers because of a good introduction. Mysteries beg for answers. People’s natural curiosity will entice them to stay tuned until the puzzle is solved. Any sentence that points out incongruity, contradiction, paradox, or irony will do. Talk about what people care about. Begin writing an introduction by asking, “Will my listeners care about this?” (Not, “Why should they care about this?”) Stepping into the pulpit calmly and scanning the congregation to the count of five can have a remarkable effect on preacher and congregation alike. It is as if you are saying, “I’m about to preach the Word of God. I want all of you settled. I’m not going to begin, in fact, until I have your complete attention.” No sermon is ready for preaching, not ready for writing out, until we can express its theme in a short, pregnant sentence as clear as crystal. The getting of that sentence is the hardest, most exacting, and most fruitful labor of study. We tend to use generalities for compelling reasons. Specifics often take research and extra thought, precious commodities to a pastor. Generalities are safe. We can’t help but use generalities when we can’t remember details of a story or when we want anonymity for someone. Still, the more specific their language, the better speakers communicate. I used to balk at spending a large amount of time on a story, because I wanted to get to the point. Now I realize the story gets the point across better than my declarative statements. Omit needless words. Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell. Limits—that is, form—challenge the mind, forcing creativity. Needless words weaken our offense. Listening to some speakers, you have to sift hundreds of gallons of water to get one speck of gold. If the sermon is so complicated that it needs a summary, its problems run deeper than the conclusion. The last sentence of a sermon already has authority; when the last sentence is Scripture, this is even more true. No matter what our tone or approach, we are wise to craft the conclusion carefully. In fact, given the crisis and opportunity that the conclusion presents—remember, it will likely be people’s lasting memory of the message—it’s probably a good practice to write out the conclusion, regardless of how much of the rest of the sermon is written. It is you who preaches Christ. And you will preach Christ a little differently than any other preacher. Not to do so is to deny your God-given uniqueness. Aim for clarity first. Beauty and eloquence should be added to make things even more clear, not more impressive. I’ll have not praise nor time for those who suppose that writing comes by some divine gift, some madness, some overflow of feeling. I’m especially grim on Christians who enter the field blithely unprepared and literarily innocent of any hard work—as though the substance of their message forgives the failure of its form.

For a time he read his Neil Diamond Bible by the firelight. He paused, twisting nervously at his goatee, considering the law in Deuteronomy that forbade clothes with mixed fibers. A problematic bit of Scripture. A matter that required thought. “Only the devil wants man to have a wide range of lightweight and comfortable styles to choose from,” he murmured at last, trying out a new proverb. “Although there may be no forgiveness for polyester. On this one matter, Satan and the Lord are in agreement.

MY FIRST ASSIGNMENT AFTER BEING ORDAINED as a pastor almost finished me. I was called to be the assistant pastor in a large and affluent suburban church. I was glad to be part of such an obviously winning organization. After I had been there a short time, a few people came to me and asked that I lead them in a Bible study. “Of course,” I said, “there is nothing I would rather do.” We met on Monday evenings. There weren’t many—eight or nine men and women—but even so that was triple the two or three that Jesus defined as a quorum. They were eager and attentive; I was full of enthusiasm. After a few weeks the senior pastor, my boss, asked me what I was doing on Monday evenings. I told him. He asked me how many people were there. I told him. He told me that I would have to stop. “Why?” I asked. “It is not cost-effective. That is too few people to spend your time on.” I was told then how I should spend my time. I was introduced to the principles of successful church administration: crowds are important, individuals are expendable; the positive must always be accented, the negative must be suppressed. Don’t expect too much of people—your job is to make them feel good about themselves and about the church. Don’t talk too much about abstractions like God and sin—deal with practical issues. We had an elaborate music program, expensively and brilliantly executed. The sermons were seven minutes long and of the sort that Father Taylor (the sailor-preacher in Boston who was the model for Father Mapple in Melville’s Moby Dick) complained of in the transcendentalists of the last century: that a person could no more be converted listening to sermons like that than get intoxicated drinking skim milk.[2] It was soon apparent that I didn’t fit. I had supposed that I was there to be a pastor: to proclaim and interpret Scripture, to guide people into a life of prayer, to encourage faith, to represent the mercy and forgiveness of Christ at special times of need, to train people to live as disciples in their families, in their communities and in their work. In fact I had been hired to help run a church and do it as efficiently as possible: to be a cheerleader to this dynamic organization, to recruit members, to lend the dignity of my office to certain ceremonial occasions, to promote the image of a prestigious religious institution. I got out of there as quickly as I could decently manage it. At the time I thought I had just been unlucky. Later I came to realize that what I experienced was not at all uncommon.

The god of the prosperity gospelists is a pathetic doormat, a genie. The god of the cutesy coffee mugs and Joel Osteen tweets is a milquetoast doofus like the guys in the Austen novels you hope the girls don’t end up with, holding their hats limply in hand and minding their manners to follow your lead like a butler—or the doormat he stands on. The god of the American Dream is Santa Claus. The god of the open theists is not sovereignly omniscient, declaring the end from the beginning, but just a really good guesser playing the odds. The god of our therapeutic culture is ourselves, we, the “forgivers” of ourselves, navel-haloed morons with “baggage” but not sin. None of these pathetic gods could provoke fear and trembling. But the God of the Scriptures is a consuming fire (Deut. 4:24). “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb. 10:31). He stirs up the oceans with the tip of his finger, and they sizzle rolling clouds of steam into the sky. He shoots lightning from his fists. This is the God who leads his children by a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire. This is the God who makes war, sends plagues, and sits enthroned in majesty and glory in his heavens, doing what he pleases. This is the God who, in the flesh, turned tables over in the temple as if he owned the place. This Lord God Jesus Christ was pushed to the edge of the cliff and declared, “This is not happening today,” and walked right back through the crowd like a boss. This Lord says, “No one takes my life; I give it willingly,” as if to say, “You couldn’t kill me unless I let you.” This Lord calms the storms, casts out demons, binds and looses, and has the authority to grant us the ability to do the same. The Devil is this God’s lapdog. And it is this God who has summoned us, apprehended us, saved us. It is this God who has come humbly, meekly, lowly, pouring out his blood in infinite conquest to set the captives free, cancel the record of debt against us, conquer sin and Satan, and swallow up death forever. Let us, then, advance the gospel of the kingdom out into the perimeter of our hearts and lives with affectionate meekness and humble submission. Let us repent of our nonchalance. Let us embrace the wonder of Christ.

The work of God requires stamina. Nehemiah sustained his stamina even through staggering difficulties. He persisted through both ridicule and discouragement, and he remained faithful when tempted to compromise. This tenacity is required of leaders who will make a difference. Will you crumble under the pressures, or will you face the trials with God’s strength? Many today question the possibility of revival. These naysayers see only the decaying moral condition of society and the disappointing lukewarm condition of churches. Revival, however, is not dependent on or the result of a flourishing spiritual condition. Some of the greatest revivals in Scripture came during the darkest times. Let us not look at the rubbish, but at Christ, the Rock, who can rebuild our country through revival. Let us be leaders God can use to bring revival. Nehemiah was not a man to sit idly by when there was tremendous need. Neither was he a man to attempt meeting such need in his own strength. God used Nehemiah to bring revival because Nehemiah began with supplication for God’s forgiveness and power. The task of rebuilding the walls could never have been completed by one man alone; it needed a leader who understood the power of synergy. Nehemiah’s willingness to be personally involved in the work, as well as his ability to convey the need to others, resulted in a task force that completed this enormous building project in a mere fifty-two days—to the glory of God. Like any godly leader, Nehemiah did not go unchallenged. Yet, he sustained his stamina in the face of every opposition. Nehemiah’s life proves that revival is possible, even when it appears the most unlikely. God sends revival through leaders willing to make a difference.

The forgiveness of God In God, there is another perfection, which inclines Him to forgive immediately the gravest and most numerous offenses, if we make a firm resolution to turn from them and truly to amend. Even more, God forgets these offenses in return for a single lamentation for a contrite heart, as Scripture says. And if we remain in this good will, He does not contemplate vengeance for our sins later, nor does He contemplate reproaching us with them in order to dismay us, nor charging us with them in order to love us less, nor driving us away from Him by withdrawing His intimacy.

Among the people who appeared in the pages of the Scripture, those whom Christ had searched after in love were the woman of Capharnaum with the issue of blood, the woman taken in adultery whom men had wanted to stone -- people with no attraction, no beauty. Anyone could be attracted by the beautiful and the charming. But could such attraction be called love? True love was to accept humanity when wasted like rags and tatters. Therefore the priest knew all this; but still he could not forgive Kichijiro. Once again near his face came the face of Christ, wet with tears. When the gentle eyes looked straight into his, the priest was filled with shame.

What a stink! As I was complaining about how bad it smelled in the bathroom, I said, “Why don’t these people flush as they go?” And when I sat down, the Lord began to talk to me. He said, just as it stinks in here, sin stinks in my nostrils. If people would flush as they go, there would hardly be any stink or build-up. In other words, if we would forgive as we go there would be no holding on to anger or to unforgiveness. We would be able to continue on in a way that is pleasing to the Lord in our relationships with others. One Scripture says, “Don’t let the sun go down on your wrath” (Ephesians 4:26). If we forgive others as we go, there would be no build-up.

44Then he said to them,  k“These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you,  lthat everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” 45Then  mhe opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, 46and said to them, “Thus  nit is written,  othat the Christ should suffer and on the third day  prise from the dead, 47and that  qrepentance for [3] the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed  rin his name  sto all nations,  tbeginning from Jerusalem. 48 uYou are witnesses of these things. 49And behold, I am sending  vthe promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you  ware clothed with  xpower  yfrom on high.

Having written some pages in favor of Jesus, I receive a solemn communication crediting me with the possession of a “theology” by which I acquire the strange dignity of being wrong forever or forever right. Have I gauged exactly enough the weights of sins? Have I found too much of the Hereafter in the Here? Or the other way around? Have I found too much pleasure, too much beauty and goodness, in this our unreturning world? O Lord, please forgive any smidgen of such distinctions I may have still in my mind. I meant to leave them all behind a long time ago. If I’m a theologian I am one to the extent I have learned to duck when the small, haughty doctrines fly overhead, dropping their loads of whitewash at random on the faces of those who look toward Heaven. Look down, look down, and save your soul by honester dirt, that receives with a lordly indifference this off-fall of the air. Christmas night and Easter morning are this soil’s only laws. The depth and volume of the waters of baptism, the true taxonomy of sins, the field marks of those most surely saved, God’s own only interpretation of the Scripture: these would be causes of eternal amusement, could we forget how we have hated one another, how vilified and hurt and killed one another, bloodying the world, by means of such questions, wrongly asked, never to be rightly answered, but asked and wrongly answered, hour after hour, day after day, year after year—such is my belief—in Hell.

the purpose of confessing our sins is not to render us miserable by simply reminding us what great sinners we are. It is to remind us of what a great Savior we have. We confess that “there is no health in us” in order that our hearts may be drawn afresh to the Great Physician of our souls, who has provided for our desperate need for cleansing in the gospel. For that reason, we always follow our prayer of confession with a scriptural assurance of pardon: God’s authoritative declaration of the forgiveness of each and every one of the sins of his people in Jesus Christ. This is our only hope in life and death. These assurances, too, we have endeavored to make specific, providing gospel encouragement tailored to our particular failings and pointing us afresh to the new life that is ours in Christ.

Have you ever felt that your parents, or spouse, or your God loved you, and yet wondered if they actually liked you? Love is so loaded with obligations and duty that it often loses all emotive force, all sense of pleasure and satisfaction. Like can remind us of an aspect of God’s love that we far too easily forget. Forgetting God’s delight and joy in us stunts our ability to enjoy God’s love. Forgiveness—as beautiful and crucial as it is—is not enough. Unless it is understood to come from love and to lead back to love, unless we understand the gospel in terms of God’s fierce delight in us and not merely a wiping away of prior offenses, unless we understand God’s battle for us as a dramatic personal rescue and not merely a cold forensic process, we have ignored most of the Scriptures as well as the needs of the human condition.

The myth of redemptive violence is, in short, nationalism become absolute. This myth speaks for God; it does not listen for God to speak. It invokes the sovereignty of God as its own; it does not entertain the prophetic possibility of radical judgment by God. It misappropriates the language, symbols, and scriptures of Christianity. It does not seek God in order to change; it embraces God in order to prevent change. Its God is not the impartial ruler of all nations but a tribal god worshiped as an idol. Its metaphor is not the journey but the fortress. Its symbol is not the cross but the crosshairs of a gun. Its offer is not forgiveness but victory. Its good news is not the unconditional love of enemies but their final elimination. Its salvation is not a new heart but a successful foreign policy. Its usurps the revelation of God's purposes for humanity in Jesus. It is blasphemous. It is idolatrous.

Much later that night, as he meditated in forgiveness of the day, he wondered at himself. Had not he laughed at cruelty, had not his smile condoned the degradation of another human being? Where was Sa in that? Guilt washed over him. He forced it aside; a true priest of Sa had little use for guilt. It but obscured; if something made a man feel bad then he must determine what about it troubled him, and eliminate that. Simply to suffer the discomforts of guilt did not indicate a man had improved himself, only that he suspected he harbored a fault. He lay still in the darkness and pondered what had made him smile and why. And for the first time in many years, he wondered if his conscience was not too tender, if it had not become a barrier between him and his fellows. “That which separates is not of Sa,” he said softly to himself. But he fell asleep before he could remember the source for the quote, or even it if were from scripture at all. p. 313

The frequent asking of forgiveness, then^ for those things in which we often transgress, is the semblance of repentance, not repentance itself. " But the righteousness of the blameless cuts straight paths," ^ says the Scripture. And again, " The righteousness of the innocent will make his w^ay right." ^ Nay, " as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him."^ David writes, " They who sow," then, " in tears, shall 1 Heb. X. 26, 27. ^ John i. 13. ^ p^ov. xi. 5. ^ Prov. xiii. 6. ^ Ps. ciii. 13. reap in joy;"^ those, namely, who confess in penitence. "For blessed are all those that fear the Lord.""" You see the corresponding blessing in the gospel. " Fear not," it is said, " when a man is enriched, and when the glory of his house is increased: because when he dieth he shall leave all, and his glory shall not descend after him." ^ " But I in Thy mercy will enter into Thy house. I will worship toward Thy holy temple, in Thy fear : Lord, lead me in Thy righteousness."^ Appetite is then the movement of the mind to or from something.^

There can be no fear of this infinite, universal God. When you study scripture and see how the Hebrews lived their lives in fear of God’s punishment, and then turn to the New Testament and realize that the Master gave as one of his reasons for being on earth, the forgiveness of sin and sinners, you know there is no reason under the sun for continuing to fear punishment for your sins of omission or commission. As a matter of fact, even if some of those sins should be continuing into our present experience, even if we have not reached the spiritual elevation in which all sin has departed from us–and who has?–even then we are to know we are not under the law of punishment but under the law of grace, under forgiveness, under God’s grace, which not only wipes out the penalty for sin but wipes out the capacity for sin. Sometimes sin lingers on even after the penalty has been wiped out, but it isn’t any different from the chicken that runs around after its head is cut off. It’s just fooling us for a little while; it’s dead but it doesn’t know it. So, too, our past is dead, even if some sins are temporarily being continued in the present. Why is our past dead? Because we acknowledge there are not two powers operating. There is only one.

MAY 20 WHEN YOUR SINS WEIGH HEAVILY upon you, come to Me. Confess your wrongdoing, which I know all about before you say a word. Stay in the Light of My Presence, receiving forgiveness, cleansing, and healing. Remember that I have clothed you in My righteousness, so nothing can separate you from Me. Whenever you stumble or fall, I am there to help you up. Man’s tendency is to hide from his sin, seeking refuge in the darkness. There he indulges in self-pity, denial, self-righteousness, blaming, and hatred. But I am the Light of the world, and My illumination decimates the darkness. Come close to Me and let My Light envelop you, driving out darkness and permeating you with Peace. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. —1 JOHN 1:7 I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. —ISAIAH 61:10 When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” —JOHN 8:12

For two millennia the church has focused on worshiping a Christ who saves, a Christ who forgives, a Christ who cleanses, a Christ who challenges us and changes us, a Christ who convicts us and converts us, and a Christ who is coming again. If, as the Apostles’ Creed tells us, Jesus Christ is coming again to judge the living and the dead (Acts 17:31; Rev. 19:11–21); and if those who repent of their sins and believe in Christ will live forever with God in his new creation (Mark 1:15; Acts 17:30; Rev. 21:7; 21:1–27) through the atoning work of Christ on the cross (Isa. 53:1–12; Rom. 5:1–21); and if those who are not born again (John 3:5) and do not believe in Christ (John 3:18) and do not turn from their sinful practices (1 John 3:4–10) will face eternal punishment and the just wrath of God in hell (John 3:36; 5:29); and if among those in the lake of fire excluded from the heavenly garden are the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars (Rev. 21:8, 27)—then determining what constitutes sexual immorality in God’s mind has everything to do with the storyline of Scripture. Is homosexual activity a sin that must be repented of, forsaken, and forgiven, or, given the right context and commitment, can we consider same-sex sexual intimacy a blessing worth celebrating and solemnizing?

The most wonderful thing of all about the cross is that it reveals the love of God to us. It is not surprising that Paul should say to the Romans, "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." How do we see the love of God in the cross? Ah, says the modern man, I see it in this way, that though man rejected and murdered the Son of God, God in His love still says, "All right, I still forgive you. Though you have done that to My Son, I still forgive you." Yes, that is part of it, but it is the smallest part of it. That is not the real love of God. God was not a passive spectator of the death of His Son. That is how the moderns put it - that God in heaven looked down upon it all, saw men killing His own Son, and said, "All right, I will still forgive you." But it was not we who brought God's Son to the cross. It was God. It was the predeterminate counsel and foreknowledge of God. If you really want to know what the love of God means, read what Paul wrote to the Romans: "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." God condemned sin in the flesh of His own Son. This is the love of God. Read again Isaiah 53, that wonderful prophecy of what happened on Calvary's hill. You notice how he goes on repeating it: "Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows... it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief." These are the terms. And they are nothing but a plain, factual description of what happened on the cross.

To my great distress, I sometimes hear people say, in their zeal for fervency and efficacy in prayer, that we should never qualify our prayer requests with the words "if it be Your will." Some will even say that to attach those words, those conditional terms, to our prayers is an act of unbelief. We are told today that in the boldness of faith we are to "name it and claim it." I suppose I should be more measured in my response to this trend, but I can't think of anything more foreign to the teaching of Christ. We come to the presence of God in boldness, but never in arrogance. Yes, we can name and claim those things God has clearly promised in Scripture. For instance, we can claim the certainty of forgiveness if we confess our sins before Him, because He promises that. But when it comes to getting a raise, purchasing a home, or finding healing from a disease, God hasn't made those kind of specific promises anywhere in Scripture, so we are not free to name and claim those things. As I mentioned earlier, when we come before God, we must remember two simple facts-who He is and who we are. We must remember that we're talking to the King, the Sovereign One, the Creator, but we are only creatures. If we will keep those facts in mind, we will pray politely. We will say, "By Your leave," "As You wish," "If You please," and so on. That's the way we go before God. To say that it is a manifestation of unbelief or a weakness of faith to say to God "if it be Your will" is to slander the very Lord of the Lord's Prayer. It was Jesus, after all, who, in His moment of greatest passion, prayed regarding the will of God. In his Gospel, Luke tells us that immediately following the Last Supper: Coming out, He went to the Mount of Olives, as He was accustomed, and His disciples also followed Him. When He came to the place, He said to them, "Pray that you may not enter into temptation." And He was withdrawn from them about a stone's throw, and He knelt down and prayed, saying, "Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done." Then an angel appeared to Him from heaven, strengthening Him. And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. (Luke 22:39-44) It is important to see what Jesus prays here. He says, "Not My will, but Yours, be done." Jesus was not saying, "I don't want to be obedient" or "I refuse to submit." Jesus was saying: "Father, if there's any other way, all things being equal, I would rather not have to do it this way. What You have set before Me is more ghastly than I can contemplate. I'm entering into My grand passion and I'm terrified, but if this is what You want, this is what I'll do. Not My will, but Your will, be done, because My will is to do Your will." I also want you to notice what happened after Jesus prayed. Luke tells us that an angel came to Him and strengthened Him. The angel was the messenger of God. He came from heaven with the Father's answer to Jesus' prayer. That answer was this: "You must drink the cup." This is what it means to pray that the will of God would be done. It is the highest expression of faith to submit to the sovereignty of God. The real prayer of faith is the prayer that trusts God no matter whether the answer is yes or no. It takes no faith to "claim," like a robber, something that is not ours to claim. We are to come to God and tell Him what we want, but we must trust Him to give the answer that is best for us. That is what Jesus did.

The Son of God dies in splendor and majesty, not in defeat and loss. The crucifixion event covers about six hours. During those six hours, the gospel writers capture a series of seven sayings of Christ from the tree of death—sometimes referred to as the Seven Last Words. The first three statements are horizontal in nature, describing Christ’s conclusion of His dealings with mankind. They are characterized by: Forgiveness: “Jesus was saying, ‘Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing’” (Luke 23:34). Redemption: “He said to [the thief on the cross], ‘Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise’” (23:43). Compassion: “When Jesus then saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His mother, ‘Woman, behold, your son!’ Then He said to the disciple, ‘Behold, your mother!’ From that hour the disciple took her into his own household” (John 19:26-27). * Even in the middle of His pain and anguish, Jesus took the time to perform the duty of the oldest son in caring for His mother. Having cared for those around Him,* the Savior turned His attention heavenward and to the ultimate task at hand. His final four statements engage His Father in the redemptive act that is occurring on the cross of Calvary. These statements express the spiritual aspects of Christ’s work as He progresses through these stages: Abandonment: “About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?’” (Matthew 27:46). Readiness: “After this, Jesus, knowing that all things had already been accomplished, to fulfill the Scripture, said, ‘I am thirsty’” (John 19:28). Fulfillment: “Therefore when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, ‘It is finished!’ And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit” (John 19:30). Release: “Jesus, crying out with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.’ Having said this, He breathed His last” (Luke 23:46). The charge that was placed above His head read: “this is Jesus the King of the Jews” (Matthew 27:37). Everything about His crucifixion spoke of His true majesty, not only as the King of the Jews but also as the King of kings.

God has not given us the spirit of fear. He has given us the spirit of Love and a competent mind. Love conquers fear, because Love has Power, that creates a competent mind, that allows a person to make rational decisions and use righteous judgment to resolve or solve problems. Through this God-given process, we are able to endure and persevere in times of hardships, and when facing a crisis. When our spirit is broken by hate, and heavy loads are placed upon us, we turn to God for strength in our storms of life. And we seek his Love to restore us to wholeness. He restores us with Hope. From within him we receive Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance as it is noted in Galatians 5:22. Because of God's Love for us, we are able to have the patience to wait for his Power to restore us so that we are in control of our mind to over-power fear and to lead a successful life to meet our goals and create a greater opportunity filled with his blessings. He has created us to be a victorious people. Therefore, we are able to create far greater opportunities through Love. God gives power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increases strength. (Isaiah 40:29) When we are broken by the storms of life, God's Love restore us. We bow before him, in a humble spirit at his throne of grace, and ask in prayer for mercy and renewed strength. It is here that we find the needed strength to forgive those who have wronged us and the Power to Love. Those who wait upon the Lord, shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:31) Fear is powerless. It torments the mind and paralyzes the thought process. It causes panic. Thereby, leaving the person, feeling a sense of hopelessness and unwilling to trust others. It closes possibilities to allow for change. The prophet Isaiah noted; Even the youth shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. (Isaiah 40:30) And when Jesus disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, "It is a spirit," and they cried out for fear. But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer; it is I, be not afraid. (Matthew 14:26, 27) Fear is a person's worst enemy; it causes panic, that results in making irrational decisions. Such behavior is based on poor judgment, that was made due to a lack of patience, to make an adequate investigation of the situation before proceeding. The outcome will create serious problems that can cause serious harm. LOVE is the chain that binds us together. Do not allow hate to separate us. There is One God One family One faith One world We are not defined by belief or by faith nor religion. We are the family of God. Written by: Ellen J. Barrier Source of Scriptures: King James Version Bible

Know Your Father’s Heart Today’s Scripture Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 1 JOHN 4:10 KJV Today, I want you to reread the parable of the father of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11–32). As you read, keep in mind that this son utterly rejected and completely humiliated and dishonored his father, then only returned home when he remembered that even his father’s hired servants had more food than he did! It was not the son’s love for his father that made him journey home; it was his stomach. In his own self-absorbed pride, he wanted to earn his own keep as a hired servant rather than to receive his father’s provision by grace or unmerited favor. God wants us to know that even when our motivations are wrong, even when we have a hidden (usually self-centered) agenda and our intentions are not completely pure, He still runs to us in our time of need and showers His unmerited, undeserved, and unearned favor upon us. Oh, how unsearchable are the depths of His love and grace toward us! It will never be about our love for God. It will always be about His magnificent love for us. The Bible makes this clear: “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10 KJV). Some people think that fellowship with God can only be restored when you are perfectly contrite and have perfectly confessed all your sins. Yet we see in this parable that it was the father who was the initiator, it was the father who had missed his son, who was already looking out for him, and who had already forgiven him. Before the son could utter a single word of his rehearsed apology, the father had already run to him, embraced him, and welcomed him home. Can you see how it’s all about our Father’s heart of grace, forgiveness, and love? Our Father God swallows up all our imperfections, and true repentance comes because of His goodness. Do I say “sorry” to God and confess my sins when I have fallen short and failed? Of course I do. But I do it not to be forgiven because I know that I am already forgiven through Jesus’ finished work. The confession is out of the overflow of my heart because I have experienced His goodness and grace and because I know that as His son, I am forever righteous through Jesus’ blood. It springs from being righteousness-conscious, not sin-conscious; from being forgiveness-conscious, not judgment-conscious. There is a massive difference. If you understand this and begin practicing this, you will begin experiencing new dimensions in your love walk with the Father. You will realize that your Daddy God is all about relationship and not religious protocol. He just loves being with you. Under grace, He doesn’t demand perfection from you; He supplies perfection to you through the finished work of His Son, Jesus Christ. So no matter how many mistakes you have made, don’t be afraid of Him. He loves you. Your Father is running toward you to embrace you! Today’s Thought My Father God runs to me in my time of need and showers His unmerited, undeserved, and unearned favor upon me. Today’s Prayer Father, thank You that I can experience Your love even when I have failed. No matter how many mistakes I may have made, I don’t have to be afraid to come to You. I am still Your beloved child, and I always have fellowship with You because of the finished work of Jesus. I thank You that You don’t demand perfection from me, but You supply perfection to me through the cross. It blesses my heart to know that You just love being with me. Thank You for running to embrace me. Amen.

It was passages like these, where there is a clear mocking of literalist readings of Scripture, that had brought me back around to Christianity after a long stretch, following college, when my notion of God and Jesus had grown, to put it gently, tenuous. During my sojourn in ironclad atheism, the primary arsenal leveled against Christianity had been its failure on empirical grounds. Surely enlightened reason offered a more co­herent cosmos. Surely Occam’s razor cut the faithful free from blind faith. There is no proof of God; therefore, it is unreasonable to believe in God. Although I had been raised in a devout Christian family, where prayer and Scripture readings were a nightly ritual, I, like most scientific types, came to believe in the possibility of a material conception of reality, an ultimately scientific worldview that would grant a complete metaphysics, minus outmoded concepts like souls, God, and bearded white men in robes. I spent a good chunk of my twenties trying to build a frame for such an endeavor. The problem, however, eventually became evident: to make science the arbiter of metaphysics is to banish not only God from the world but also love, hate, meaning — to consider a world that is self-evidently not the world we live in. That’s not to say that if you believe in meaning, you must also believe in God. It is to say, though, that if you believe that science provides no basis for God, then you are almost obligated to conclude that science provides no basis for meaning and, therefore, life itself doesn’t have any. In other words, existential claims have no weight; all knowledge is scientific knowledge. Yet the paradox is that scientific methodology is the product of human hands and thus cannot reach some permanent truth. We build scientific theories to organize and manipulate the world, to reduce phenomena into manageable units. Science is based on reproducibility and manufactured objectivity. As strong as that makes its ability to generate claims about matter and energy, it also makes scientific knowledge inapplicable to the existential, visceral nature of human life, which is unique and subjective and unpredictable. Science may provide the most useful way to organize empirical, reproducible data, but its power to do so is predicated on its inability to grasp the most central aspects of human life: hope, fear, love, hate, beauty, envy, honor, weakness, striving, suffering, virtue. Between these core passions and scientific theory, there will always be a gap. No system of thought can contain the fullness of human experience. The realm of metaphysics remains the province of revelation (this, not atheism, is what Occam argued, after all). And atheism can be justified only on these grounds. The prototypical atheist, then, is Graham Greene’s commandant from The Power and the Glory, whose atheism comes from a revelation of the absence of God. The only real atheism must be grounded in a world-making vision. The favorite quote of many an atheist, from the Nobel Prize–winning French biologist Jacques Monod, belies this revelatory aspect: “The ancient covenant is in pieces; man at last knows that he is alone in the unfeeling immensity of the universe, out of which he emerged only by chance.” Yet I returned to the central values of Christianity -- sacrifice, redemption, forgiveness -- because I found them so compelling. There is a tension in the Bible between justice and mercy, between the Old Testament and the New Testament. And the New Testament says you can never be good enough: goodness is the thing, and you can never live up to it. The main message of Jesus, I believed, is that mercy trumps justice every time.

I believe this son represents those of us who are “Pharisees” in our hearts. We keep all the rules, we do everything required of us, and we are faithful and loyal believers. But we lack what our Father cares about most: love, compassion, mercy, grace, and forgiveness.

285.  The Messenger has believed in what was revealed to him from his Lord, as did the believers. They all have believed in Allah, and His angels, and His scriptures, and His messengers: "We make no distinction between any of His messengers." And they say, "We hear and we obey. Your forgiveness, our Lord. To you is the destiny.

The alternative that Jesus has for us is light and easy. It is the yoke of the forgiveness of sins. It is the burden of His mercy and kindness. It is the comfort of His smile and the joy of His promises. It is His voice, full of grace and truth, calling us through the Scriptures. When we listen for that voice in the Scriptures, we hear it, and we rejoice.

God isn't limited to forcing people against their will to repent and be reconciled to him. Got has the power ... to change the human will to see the ugliness and destructiveness of sin, and to turn away from it and embrace the grace that is freely given by God. Take the Apostle Paul, for example. On the road to Damascus, as he is on his way to persecute Christians, Christ reveals himself to Paul in such a way as to cause Paul to see the harm that he is doing and the pain that he is causing Christ (Acts 9:1-19). This compels him to turn away from his violent way of life and open himself up to the light of Christ's forgiveness and empowerment to become a new person (2 Cor. 5:17). Paul wasn't seeking to choose Christ. He had chosen to reject Christ and to try to stamp out those who had accepted Christ as the Messiah. So, to those who say that God cannot ensure that someone will choose God, I ask them this: Did God do something wrong to Paul on the road to Damascus? Did God "rape" or "brainwash" Paul? I don't think so. Out of love, God overwhelmed Paul with a vision of truth that left Paul in repentance and a desire to love Christ. If God can do this for Paul, this hardened murderer of Christians who scripture says is the "chief of all sinners" (1 Tim 1:15), then why can't God do this for anyone?

The free gift of salvation from the forever “fallout” of sin and evil, the forgiveness of sins and evils we have personally committed, and the promise of being with God for all eternity now are available to all those who believe what Jesus

Forgiveness is the outpouring of God’s love on a sinner, uninterrupted by his sin. Only God can pour out that love.

In Jeremiah chapter 31, verses 31 through 34, the Lord says He will institute a new covenant with His people.” He opened the scriptures and read the passage. “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah – not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.

Did you have expectations of them that were too weighty? Are you holding on to bitterness even though Scripture tells us to root it out? Are you hurt because you’ve been keeping score and you feel you’re not getting what you deserve? Have you been keeping a record of wrongs? And if you’ve been legitimately sinned against, are you allowing God to escort you through the process of forgiveness? Are you fearful of being hurt again and therefore unwilling to trust God with your heart?

Even though we so often pray, “Come, Holy Spirit,” the gift of the Spirit is already given. The Holy Spirit has already come. We all are temples of the Holy Spirit, equally, objectively, and forever! The only difference is the degree that we know it, draw upon it, and consciously believe it. All the scriptural images of the Spirit are dynamic—flowing water, descending dove or fire, and rushing wind. If there’s never any movement, energy, excitement, deep love, service, forgiveness, or surrender, we can be pretty sure we aren’t living out of the Spirit. If our whole lives are just going through the motions, if there’s never any deep conviction, we aren’t connected to the Spirit. We would do well to fan into flame the gift that we already have.  God doesn’t give God’s Spirit to those of us who are worthy, because none of us are worthy. God gives God’s Spirit in this awakened way to those who want it. [...] Rely upon it. Know that it has already been given. 

and in the process he brought terrifying judgments on the king and his country. But even the Lord’s judgments can have a saving and restorative purpose. The Lord often has to humble the proud through suffering before the proud are ready to humble themselves before the Lord. Divine hardening means that God sets the strong and boastful of the world on a path toward painful humiliation, with the aim that they will come to seek forgiveness. Whether Pharaoh reached this point of repentance is simply unknown to us. The point is that even

Jesus, love forgives and desires nothing more than to embrace the offender

Yes, we can name and claim those things God has clearly promised in Scripture. For instance, we can claim the certainty of forgiveness if we confess our sins before Him, because He promises that. But when it comes to getting a raise, purchasing a home, or finding healing from a disease, God hasn't made those kind of specific promises anywhere in Scripture, so we are not free to name and claim those things. As

We are told today that in the boldness of faith we are to "name it and claim it." I suppose I should be more measured in my response to this trend, but I can't think of anything more foreign to the teaching of Christ. We come to the presence of God in boldness, but never in arrogance. Yes, we can name and claim those things God has clearly promised in Scripture. For instance, we can claim the certainty of forgiveness if we confess our sins before Him, because He promises that. But when it comes to getting a raise, purchasing a home, or finding healing from a disease, God hasn't made those kind of specific promises anywhere in Scripture, so we are not free to name and claim those things. As

Established Christians and new converts alike need to understand the overall plan of God, how it is fulfilled in Christ and the church, and how they as individuals have a part to play in it. Jesus’ teaching method after his resurrection is particularly instructive for us in this context. When he taught his friends on the road to Emmaus, and later that evening taught his disciples in Jerusalem, he opened up the Scriptures to demonstrate that the Messiah needed to suffer. He said to them, ‘Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.’16 ‘The law, the prophets and the psalms’ (or ‘writings’) were the sections into which the Hebrew Scriptures were divided; in other words, Jesus took them through the whole Old Testament, opening their minds so that they could understand, and giving them a summary of Scripture, namely that ‘the Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem’.17 This would hardly be the Old Testament summary that most of us would give if asked, yet Jesus is clear that the Old Testament speaks about a coming Messiah who must suffer and rise again. All the promises must then be fulfilled in and through him, in particular the promise that has been consistent throughout Scripture, of the glory of God filling the earth, and of every nation being blessed through Abraham’s seed. This is why the gospel is to be preached throughout the world. This is the big story, the big picture, the whole plan of God; this is what needs to be understood as a foundational revelation.

The Lord enjoins us to do good to all without exception, though the greater part, if estimated by their own merit, are most unworthy of it. But Scripture subjoins a most excellent reason, when it tells us that we are not to look to what men in themselves deserve, but to attend to the image of God, which exists in all, and to which we owe all honor and love. But in those who are of the household of faith, the same rule is to be more carefully observed, inasmuch as that image is renewed and restored in them by the Spirit of Christ. Therefore, whoever be the man that is presented to you as needing your assistance, you have no ground for declining to give it to him. Say he is a stranger. The Lord has given him a mark which ought to be familiar to you: for which reason he forbids you to despise your own flesh (Gal. 6:10). Say he is mean and of no consideration. The Lord points him out as one whom he has distinguished by the luster of his own image (Isaiah 58:7). Say that you are bound to him by no ties of duty. The Lord has substituted him as it were into his own place, that in him you may recognize the many great obligations under which the Lord has laid you to himself. Say that he is unworthy of your least exertion on his account; but the image of God, by which he is recommended to you, is worthy of yourself and all your exertions. But if he not only merits no good, but has provoked you by injury and mischief, still this is no good reason why you should not embrace him in love, and visit him with offices of love. He has deserved very differently from me, you will say. But what has the Lord deserved? Whatever injury he has done you, when he enjoins you to forgive him, he certainly means that it should be imputed to himself. In this way only we attain to what is not to say difficult but altogether against nature, to love those that hate us, render good for evil, and blessing for cursing, remembering that we are not to reflect on the wickedness of men, but look to the image of God in them, an image which, covering and obliterating their faults, should by its beauty and dignity allure us to love and embrace them.

Day Thirty-Two Because You Love Me Thank You for all the ways You love me! Thank You that You forgive me again and again. Help me to do likewise for others. Thank You that You comfort me in my brokenness, provide for my needs, and bless me in your loving-kindness. In everything You are and in everything You do, You prove that Your love is better than life! Help me to become the example of Your love toward all. Show me how to reflect Your heart perfectly. Open my eyes to see others’ needs and open my heart to fill those as I ought. Give me words for others to comfort them and lead them to You. Scripture for Thought “Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise You. Thus I will bless You while I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name. My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise You with joyful lips. When I remember You on my bed, I meditate on You in the night watches. Because You have been my help, therefore in the shadow of Your wings I will rejoice.” Psalm 63:3–7 *** Meditate and reflect on all the ways the Lord has loved you. Consider all the ways He is loving you right now. Then, as you reflect on this, let it motivate you to go and do likewise. ***

In summary then, Jesus is the foundation stone of our peace. He bridges the gap between God and man.The Scriptures say,“He is our peace.” And what wonderful benefits are ours: forgiveness (no more shame or guilt because of the past), the continuous assurance of God’s presence in our lives, and more to the point of this book, His peace—the gift that is given to those who begin to follow the Master.

Through Scripture I came to the conclusion that I was prone on the one hand to think of God as less righteous than He is and myself as more righteous than I am, yet on the other hand to consider God as less compassionate and forgiving than He is and myself more compassionate and forgiving than I am. I had confused myself with God.

These three or four scriptures also have been great refreshments in this condition to me: John xiv. 1-4; John xvi. 33; Col. iii. 3, 4; Heb. xii. 22-24.  So that sometimes when I have been in the savour of them, I have been able to laugh at destruction, and to fear neither the horse nor his rider.  I have had sweet sights of the forgiveness of my sins in this place, and of my being with Jesus in another world: Oh! the mount Sion, the heavenly Jerusalem, the innumerable company of angels, and God the Judge of all, and the spirits of just men made perfect, and Jesus, have been sweet unto me in this place: I have seen that here, that I am persuaded I shall never, while in this world, be able to express: I have seen a truth in this scripture, Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now you see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable, and full of glory.  1 Pet. i. 8.

The Bible tells us that we are both flesh and spirit, and the two are always contending. In fact, the whole of the Scriptures is a historical account of our inner struggle between love and hate, light and darkness, arrogance and humility, knowledge and wisdom, pleasure and joy, honesty and deceit, sinfulness and innocence, enmity and forgiveness, obedience and rebellion, selfishness and sacrifice. And, in the end, life and death.

It will help you to forgive if you’ll realize that the people who hurt you have problems. Hurting people hurt others. When somebody lashes out at you or treats you unfairly, they’ve got unresolved issues of their own. There’s no excuse for hurting you, but they are part of a chain that needs to be broken. Somebody hurt them, so in turn they hurt you. Take a merciful approach and say, “God, I know what they did was wrong. They hurt me and it was not fair, but God, I’m not looking for revenge. I ask you, God, to heal them and give them what they need.” When you can pray for your enemies and even bless those who did you wrong, as the Scripture says, God will settle your accounts (Matthew 5:44; 18:21-35).

Lukewarm affection for God gives the impression that he is moderately pleasing. He is not moderately pleasing. He is infinitely pleasing. If we are not intensely pleased, we need forgiveness and healing.

Go and learn what this [Scripture] means: ‘I DESIRE COMPASSION [for those in distress], AND NOT [animal] SACRIFICE,’ for I did not come to call [to repentance] the [self-proclaimed] righteous [who see no need to change], but sinners [those who recognize their sin and actively seek forgiveness].” [Hos 6:6; Mark 2:17; Luke 5:32]

The first thing we must recognize is that the crucifixion of Christ did nothing to assuage the wrath of God.1 Jesus was not the Father’s “wrath sponge” soaking up His anger toward sin on the cross. Although it is a popular notion, we have absolutely no indication of this in Scripture.2 The reality of what Christ did on the cross was that He operated as a perfect lamb sacrifice, thus creating a brand new covenant through which the Father could forgive sin once and for all. The cross was not the punishment of sin; the cross made a way for the Father to forgive sin. God did not punish our debt of sin; He forgave our debt of sin through the perfect sacrifice. No lamb sacrifice was ever punished for sin. Rather, the lamb’s death simply enacted covenantal forgiveness. The animal merely stood between the owner and God, and its shed blood brought covenantal forgiveness. Jesus, the perfect lamb, released perfect forgiveness (see Heb. 8:6–13).

God has not promised the feeling of forgiveness. He promises forgiveness itself, if we feel it or not. God has not promised that we will experience His presence. He promises that He will never leave us or forsake us. The Lord delivers His comfort to us in the promise of the Gospel - which is true even if we don't feel it. Mysticism runs aground on the solid rock of the Scriptures. John writes, "Whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart" (1 John 3:20).

Jesus was able to die as the Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world (John 1:29), because He was without sin (Heb. 4:15). He was qualified to be an adequate substitute so mankind doesn't have to die (1 Pet. 3:18), but instead can receive the forgiveness of sins (Matt. 26:28).

If the Bible were the most boring book in the world--dull, uninteresting and seemingly irrelevant--it would still be our duty to study it. If its literary style were awkward and confusing, the duty would remain. We live as human beings under an obligation by divine mandate to study diligently God's Word. He is our Sovereign, it is his Word, and he commands that we study it. A duty is not an option. If you have not yet begun to respond to that duty, then you need to ask God to forgive you and to resolve to do your duty from this day forth.

The Roman Catholic Church has historically taught that, as an element of penance and evidence of true repentance, the Christian must confess all his sins without reserve, in all their details and qualifying circumstances, to a priest having jurisdiction; and that if any mortal sin is unconfessed it is not forgiven; and if the omission is willful, it is sacrilege, and greater guilt is incurred. (Cat. Rom., part 2., ch. 5., qs. 33, 34, 42.) And they maintain that the priest absolves judicially, not merely declaratively, from all the penal consequences of the sins confessed, by the authority of Jesus Christ. This is an obvious perversion of the Scriptural command to confess. They bid us simply to confess our faults one to another. There is not a word said about confession to a priest in the Bible. The believer, on the contrary, has immediate access to Christ, and to God through Christ (1 Tim. 2:5; John 14:6; 5:40; Matt. 11:28), and is commanded to confess his sins immediately to God. (1 John 1:9.) No priestly function is ever ascribed to the Christian ministry in the New Testament. The power of absolute forgiveness of sin belongs to God alone (Matt. 9:26), is incommunicable in its very nature, and has never been granted to any class of men as a matter of fact. The authority to bind or loose which Christ committed to his Church was understood by the apostles, as is evident from their practice, as simply conveying the power of declaring the conditions on which God pardons sin;

Because grace is unmerited favor, it cannot be earned or deserved. Thus, forgiveness can never be forced or mandated. Yet the Scriptures teach that the recipients of grace should be good stewards of it. Having received grace from God, we have the privilege and the responsibility to extend that grace to others.8

In the Data of life which I call the scripture of Truth, where the natural laws are embedded in creation, there is neither Forgiveness nor Mercy.

To William Tyndale, the Word of God is a living thing. It has both warmth and intellect. It has discretion, generosity, subtlety, movement, authority. It has a heart and a pulse. It keeps a beat and has a musical voice that allows it to sing. It enchants and it soothes. It argues and it forgives. It defends and it reasons. It intoxicates and it restores. It weeps and it exults. It thunders but never roars. It calls but never begs. And it always loves. Indeed, for Tyndale, love is the code that unlocks and empowers the Scripture. His inquiry into Scripture is always relational, never analytic.

satisfaction blots out the temporal punishments due to sin. Consequently the just man must be able to merit de condigno forgiveness of the temporal punishments remaining after absolu tion. Like all good works, those whereby satisfaction is made for sins are reducible to three classes: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. This is the express teaching of Trent. 32 Scripture tells us that these three kinds of good works blot out sin and are accepted by God in satisfaction of both guilt and punishment.

Our Father who is in heaven, Hallowed be your name. 10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth. 11 Give us this day our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. [For yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.]

This extended reflection on the Scriptures’ uses of “gospel” allows us to now offer a provisional definition. It must remain provisional until we explore the other part of our definitions discussion, the related question of the Gospels’ genre. But for now we can observe that the New Testament authors, building especially on the Isaianic vision, define the “gospel” as Jesus’s effecting the long-awaited return of God himself as King, in the power of the Spirit bringing his people back from exile and into the true promised land of a new creation, forgiving their sins,[42] and fulfilling all the promises of God and the hopes of his people. This Isaianic vision is itself based on God’s work at the exodus, which the prophets take up and reappropriate to describe God’s future work.[43] Because of this vision, described as the proclamation of good news, the apostles call their kerygma “gospel,” and it is why the evangelists likewise describe the work of Jesus and the narratives about him as euangelion. In this there is univocality; Paul and the Gospel writers all understand their message to be one of God’s reign coming in the person of Jesus through the power of the Spirit.[44] The “gospel,” whether in oral or written form, is the message of God’s comprehensively restorative kingdom.

Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” LUKE 6 : 37

Perhaps no topic touches on the importance of choice in longevity as directly as does that of suicide. The act of taking one's own life is truly a tragedy because it creates so many victims. Family and countless friends are left to bear feelings of undeserved misery and guilt. The commandment "Thou shalt not kill" is written in nine verses of scripture. Not one of them grants self-exclusion. The rational mind knows it is wrong. Unfortunately, forces of stress and depression incite behavior that is not always rational. . . . We know that the good done and the desires of the heart will also be weighed when final judgment is rendered. Alma taught: [Alma 41:2-3.] . . . Repentance operates in the spirit world as well as on earth. . . . Suicide is a choice--a grievous choice--that abbreviates longevity. Its victims include those who suffer because of that choice. They need and deserve the reassurance of the gospel and the knowledge that life for their loved one continues. Immortality of the soul applies to all, as does the privilege of repentance and forgiveness.

Relationships versus programs. Programs ordinarily presuppose that the people in the pews are simply an audience. On the other hand, building relationships in the church—through scripturally teaching one another, encouraging one another, listening to one another, confessing to one another, forgiving one another, and interacting with one another in a host of other ways—will transform the church from a passive audience to a living family.

The point was this: if Enlightenment progress is solving the problem of evil, all Jesus needs to have done is to point the way, to show people what love and compassion look like. Being reasonable, people will follow his example. If they do not, they need more teaching in reason. Much would-be Christian thought (including much would-be “biblical” Christian thought) in the last two hundred years has tacitly conceded these huge claims, turning “Kingdom of God” into “the hope for heaven after death” and treating Jesus’s death, at the most, as the mechanism whereby individual sinners can receive forgiveness and hope for an otherworldly future—leaving the politicians and economists of the Enlightenment to take over the running, and as it turns out the ruining, of the world.

The Gospel deals with real problems - loneliness, fear, poverty both financial and emotional, sickness and health, love and lust, joy, patience, forgiveness, purpose in living - the list is endless, and so are the riches of the Scripture that should inform our preaching. I think our times are so complicated and so crucial. A generation ago philosophers and world leaders warned us that with atomic power we humans could now destroy our planet. You and I now live in a more present, more personal danger: The stuff that occupies our minds can destroy our character, our mental and spiritual health, and eventually our souls. We preachers were never needed more. We aren't going out of style. We're only being called to higher ground.

In Your presence is fullness of joy and peace that passes all understanding. Let Your grace and mercy be a healing balm to my heart. Your forgiveness cleanses and purifies my soul.

Abstractions offer the ego lots of payoffs: We can remain seemingly in control; we can live in our heads; we can avoid loving in general or loving anyone in particular; we can avoid all humor, paradox and freedom. Even God is not free to act outside of our abstract theological conclusions, yet that is exactly what God does every time God forgives and shows mercy, which is not rational at all. I

People would want to get safe and come to Christ because they see the evidence in your life not because you quote the scriptures to them.

•”I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me.” (Galatians 2:20) *I have forgiveness from the penalty of sin because Christ died for me. (Romans 5:8; 1 Corinthians 15:3) *I have freedom from the power of sin because I died with Christ. (Colossians 2:11; 1 Peter 2:24)

Luke's entire understanding of the Christian mission: it is the fulfillment of scriptural promises; it only becomes possible after the death and resurrection of the Messiah of Israel; its central thrust is the message of repentance and forgiveness; it is intended for “all nations”; it is to begin “from Jerusalem”; it is to be executed by “witnesses”; and it will be accomplished in the power of the Holy Spirit.

When Jesus sees disease, He sees the opportunity to heal. When He sees sin, He sees a chance to forgive and redeem. When He sees dirty feet, He sees a chance to wash them.

You may indeed have had the experience of reading a story under a headline, and wondering whether there wasn’t some mistake — what the headline shouted and what the story appears to say point in different directions. And you can sometimes imagine how infuriating and humiliating it must be for the original journalist to have her nuance and research traduced by the quick-grab title. The point I’m trying to make is a simple one: we don’t read the story in the order in which it was written. We read the most recent piece of editing first, and that is what first guides our interpretation of the process which led up to it. Well, this is no less true of the Scriptures than it is of newspapers. We read the texts through the eyes of the most recent editors. And that means that the more we know about who edited the texts and when, the better a sense we will have of the different fragments that make up the whole.

walking through relational mess forces us to grow in our obedience of the “one another” commands. There are about fifty of these in Scripture, and they can’t be obeyed outside the context of community—love one another, serve one another, honor one another, forgive one another, encourage one another, confess to one another. These commands move us past small talk and illusions of friendship to the messiness of biblical community.