“With deep love I will take you back” (Isaiah 54:7 GNT).
Do you need a little refreshment in your life? Are you feeling a little dried up? Do you need some revival? Come back to God. You may say, “But you don’t know what I’ve done.” It doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve done. God still wants you to come back to him. You may say, “Isn’t God going to scold me? I’ve been away from him for months, years, decades.” Here’s what the Bible says God will do if you come back to him: “With deep love I will take you back” (Isaiah 54:7 GNT). God isn’t mad at you. God is mad about you! No one will ever love you more than the Creator who made you. God the Father created you, Jesus the Son died for you, and God’s Spirit wants to live in you. Christmas is proof of God’s love for you. Many people can’t feel God’s love because they’re listening to the wrong voices. If you listen to what other people say about you, you’re going to get down. If you listen to what you tell yourself, you’re going to get down. Stop believing everything you tell yourself, because it’s not all true. You lie to yourself more than you lie to anybody else. You’re not the best judge of you, because your feelings lie all the time. (This is true for all of us!) You have to decide whom you’re going to believe. Are you going to build your life on what everybody else thinks about you? Are you going to listen to what the critics say about you on social media? Are you going to listen to your own feelings? Or are you going to listen to what God says about you, which is the truth? Acts 3:19 says, “Repent therefore, and turn back,that your sins may be blotted out” (ESV). You’re deeply flawed, but you are deeply loved, and you are infinitely valuable. You may have come to the end of yourself and feel like you don’t have anywhere to turn. But there is always Someone to turn to. With deep love, God will take you back.
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“Mary was engaged to Joseph, but before they were married, she found out that she was going to have a baby by the Holy Spirit. Joseph was a man who always did what was right, but he did not want to disgrace Mary publicly; so he made plans to break the engagement quietly” (Matthew 1:18-19 GNT).
The Christmas story could have gone differently for Joseph. Think about it: God could have chosen to save Joseph a lot of confusion and pain by directly telling him about Baby Jesus. Instead, Joseph has to learn the news from Mary and possibly think his fiancée’s been unfaithful to him. What is God doing here? He is testing Joseph’s character. He wants to see if Joseph will be compassionate, forgiving, and loving. And instead of trying to get even or even getting angry, Joseph chooses to offer grace and let the pain go. Mary was struggling with fear at the first Christmas, and Joseph was struggling with anger. This happens today in marriage after marriage. Often, one spouse is dealing with fear and the other is dealing with anger at the same time. Joseph had every reason to be hurt and wounded, but he didn’t attack Mary in his hurt. He offered her grace. The Bible says in Matthew 1:18-19, “Mary was engaged to Joseph, but before they were married, she found out that she was going to have a baby by the Holy Spirit. Joseph was a man who always did what was right, but he did not want to disgrace Mary publicly; so he made plans to break the engagement quietly” (GNT). That’s a beautiful example of grace. Joseph doesn’t publicly embarrass her. He’s not trying to shame her. He just says, “Okay. We’re going to call off the wedding.” Joseph is put in a difficult situation, but he chooses to do what he thinks would honor God, not yet understanding that the Heavenly Father had a bigger plan for Joseph to be the earthly father of Jesus. Who has hurt you deeply? Are you still hanging on to that hurt? If you are, that’s one of the reasons you’re not joyful. You cannot be resentful and joyful at the same time. You’ve lost your joy because you’ve kept your resentment. You’re not going to change anything by holding on to your hurt. Don’t forgive because the other person deserves it. Forgive because it’s what God has done for you. Offer grace, and let the pain go. Do you want to be bitter, or do you want to be blessed? When you choose to show grace and let it go after people hurt you, you get God’s blessing on your life. “Put your heart right, Job. Reach out to God . . . Then face the world again, firm and courageous. Then all your troubles will fade from your memory, like floods that are past and remembered no more” (Job 11:13, 15-16 GNT).
You can’t heal the most pervasive, costly wounds in your life by focusing on your past. To defeat those giants, you need to look ahead. Do you try to find healing by looking in your rearview mirror? When you do this, you’re more likely to crash than heal. Focusing on whatever happened in your past that’s making you seek healing won’t lead you in the right direction. In the story of Job, we discover how to get rid of painful memories and move on with our lives: “Put your heart right, Job. Reach out to God . . . Then face the world again, firm and courageous. Then all your troubles will fade from your memory, like floods that are past and remembered no more” (Job 11:13, 15-16 GNT). First, put your heart right. You do what’s right—no matter what the other person has done to you. Forgiveness is always the right choice. Second, reach out to God. Invite Jesus into every “room” in the house of your heart. You may have invited him into the front room (accepted Jesus and were baptized) but not the other rooms in your heart. Third, face the world again. Don’t hide in a shell or withdraw to avoid getting hurt again. Move forward. Learn to live again. Your past is not your future. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done, the people you’ve done it with, or how long you’ve done it. Throughout Scripture, God forgave murderers, adulterers, and slackers, and he used them to do his work in the world. You, too, have a great future ahead of you. Put your heart right, reach out to God, and face the world again. And then let God do something incredible through you. “Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies” (Romans 8:33 ESV).
The Bible says God completely accepts you and loves you unconditionally, and as you understand that truth, it will change your life. You will never, ever be the same again. One of the first things that will change is the feeling of shame you may carry. You don’t have to carry it anymore once you know the truth about God’s unconditional love. Some people go through life avoiding God because they feel ashamed and guilty. They think, “God is a perfect God, and I am so imperfect. Why in the world would I want to hang out with a perfect God who’s simply going to remind me of all the ways that I’ve failed?” But that’s not who God is. The Bible says, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1 ESV). You may have spent your entire life trying to gain the approval of other people. It has influenced how you dress, how you talk, and how you do so many of the things you do. But when you understand that God loves you unconditionally, you realize this: You don’t need anyone else’s approval except for God’s. When you know that God loves you and that you’re forgiven, you can shake off the shame and guilt because “there is no condemnation now for those who live in union with Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1 GNT). Rejoice today that you can rest in the perfect love of your Father. “[God] canceled the debt, which listed all the rules we failed to follow. He took away that record with its rules and nailed it to the cross” (Colossians 2:14 NCV).
We all blow it from time to time. We don’t have to live with guilt, but we do have to live with our mistakes. The Bible never hides this truth. It is painfully honest about the failures of its heroes. God saved the world from flood through a man named Noah—who then got drunk, naked, and blew it all. Moses led the children of Israel through the Red Sea and into freedom—yet his anger kept him out of the Promised Land. King David was a man after God’s heart but also had an affair and murdered the woman’s husband so he wouldn’t be discovered. God realizes our frailty. If he only used perfect people, the Bible would be a pretty short book. But, God has a solution for our failures: grace. The Bible says, “[God] canceled the debt, which listed all the rules we failed to follow. He took away that record with its rules and nailed it to the cross” (Colossians 2:14 NCV). In fact, if you look at all those failures in the Bible, you get a clear picture. Just like those heroes of the Bible, you and I are trophies of God’s grace. Your primary witness to the world around you isn’t all the great things you do for God. It’s how you handle mistakes you’ve made. Do you mope or do you revel in the grace of God? People want to meet a God who turns failures into triumphs. People want to meet a God who can transform the lives of broken people. The amazing part of God’s grace isn’t just his power to forgive. It’s also the strength he gives us when we start over. “But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins” (Matthew 6:15 NIV).
Forgiveness isn’t easy. It can be one of the hardest decisions you’ll ever make. But you’ll never have the life God wants for you unless you can forgive the people who have hurt you. Here are three reasons why it’s essential to forgive others: We forgive because God has forgiven us. When you come to Christ, your sins aren’t just forgiven. They’re wiped out! God has no record of your sins anymore. The Bible says, “There is now no condemnation awaiting those who belong to Christ Jesus. For the power of the life-giving Spirit—and this power is mine through Christ Jesus—has freed me from the vicious circle of sin and death” (Romans 8:1-2 TLB). Each person faces a vicious circle, where you want to change, but you make a mistake and feel bad about it. Then you try again, fail, and feel bad about it again. It’s a cycle that you likely won’t break until you learn to offer forgiveness to people who have hurt you because you have been offered forgiveness yourself through Christ. We forgive because resentment will make us miserable. Holding on to a hurt is like drinking poison and hoping it kills the person you hate. It always hurts you more than it hurts the other person. There are people who continue to be hurt by individuals they haven’t seen in decades. That’s just foolish. Those people can’t hurt you anymore without your permission. You can choose to be happy, or you can hang on to hurt. You can’t do both. We forgive because we’ll need more forgiveness in the future. You’re not done making mistakes. None of us are. We'll be making a few more mistakes over the rest of our lives. And, of course, we'll need someone to forgive us when we do! Someone once came to 18th-century British theologian John Wesley and told him about a person he couldn’t forgive. Wesley told the man, “Then I hope you never sin.” We can’t receive what we’re unwilling to give others. Jesus says it like this: “But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins” (Matthew 6:15 NIV). Forgiving people who have hurt you isn’t just the right thing to do. It’s the smart thing to do. “Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others” (Colossians 3:13 NLT). Do you show people grace? It’s what God wants us to do, but it’s not always easy to remember to do because we are so often focused on ourselves. It’s easier sometimes to be selfish instead of gracious. You see the slow checker in the grocery store line as a five-minute interruption to your day rather than somebody who might be struggling to keep his job, somebody who just got the worst news of his life a few minutes earlier. You see the one in your family who’s struggling right now as a drain on you rather than seeing her hopelessness over a desperate situation. You see the person who cut you off on the freeway as the physical embodiment of Satan instead of just a jerk who is in need of God’s love. We are all jerks in need of God’s love. That’s why Jesus Christ came into this world. And to show people grace is to remember what God has done for us. The ultimate way God shows us grace is by forgiveness. And the ultimate way he asks us to show grace to other people is by forgiving them. Colossians 3:13 says, “Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others” (NLT). People often ask, “How can I find the strength to forgive? I don’t have it in me.” I don’t have it in me, either! The only place I’ve ever found the strength to forgive is to remember how much Jesus has forgiven me. When I remember that, then he gives me the strength and grace to forgive others. Clara Barton, who founded the American Red Cross, was reminded by a friend of an especially cruel thing that somebody had done to her years before. Barton acted like she didn’t remember it, and the friend asked, “Don’t you remember?” Her famous reply was, “No, I distinctly remember forgetting it.” What do you need to forget? If you don’t forgive, you’re not going to enjoy God’s vision for the rest of your life, because forgiveness will keep you stuck in the past. You need to forgive for your sake, and then you need to get on with your life. Forgiveness is not saying that what somebody did was right or that there shouldn’t be consequences for what happened. It just means that you let go of your anger and hurt and give it to God so that you can move on with God’s purpose for your life. When that seems impossible, when you feel like you can’t be gracious toward someone, just remember one thing: Jesus forgave you. Remembering the grace God has shown you will give you the strength to be gracious to and forgive others. |
AuthorTaken from Daily Hope by Rick Warren. Categories
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