How To Overcome Problems In Forgiving Someone Colossians 3:13

They say everyone is normal until you get to know them, but you find they annoy or even offend us.  We know we should forgive them but sometimes it is just too hard.

"Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you." Colossians 3:13.

BEAR
This verse begins with the phrase "to bear." If we have this attitude in all our relationships they will become easy.  To bear is carry, or to endure; we are to carry not only each other's burdens but their weaknesses.

EACH OTHER
It goes both ways, you bear with them and they with you, no matter who- the rich or poor, wise or uneducated.  No group is left out.  Besides if it is hard for you to bear with them remember they are being asked to bear with you and it is unlikely that you are perfect.

FORGIVE
To forgive is to grant grace, it is to overlook an offense, but not only that it must not hold any back; you can't say, "I'll forgive but I won't forget," that is not forgiveness.

GRIEVANCE
A grievance is a deep-felt argument, and it is like an open wound. We can carry a grievance a long time if we are not careful. It can fester and affect all areas of our life and relationships.

AS THE LORD FORGAVE
You expect God to forgive you graciously and utterly, so in that same way, you must forgive others. No matter how deeply you are offended the Lord has experienced a deeper offense.

     * The Lord forgave sacrificially.
     * The Lord forgave completely.
     * The Lord forgave lovingly.
     * The Lord forgave without recrimination.
     * The Lord forgives for all time.

Can we forgive the same way the Lord does?  No one can!  The good news is that when the Lord comes into your life you have His power to live and forgive.  In Christ, you can forgive the same way that He forgave sinners.

When He is in your life he will change your heart.  We must keep growing closer to him through prayer, His Word, service, and fellowship; then as we grow in Him we grow in the power to forgive.

To know more about how to have God in your life follow this link to my other blog.

(c) Adron 11/28/15

Is There Any Hope For The Most Evil Person On Earth? Jonah 4:2

Is there any hope if you are the most wicked person on earth?  The Bible suggests there is.

"He prayed to the LORD, "Isn't this what I said, LORD, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity." Jonah 4:2.

A LITTLE BACKGROUND:
The people of ancient Nineveh were wicked and evil to a degree that rivals or surpasses the worst of today's standards.  Jonah was commissioned by God to preach a message of impending destruction and proclaim God's judgment against the people of Nineveh, but Jonah chose to reject God and go another direction.  After he was swallowed by the fish he repented, and the Lord brought him to Nineveh, and preached the warning message God gave him.  The people repented and God did not destroy the city.

Jonah experienced God's compassion and mercy, so he knew personally that God is a wonderful, loving, and forgiving God.

A GRACIOUS AND COMPASSIONATE GOD
Jonah puts two beautiful words together to describe God; first that the Lord is gracious, and to be gracious is to give favor to those who do not deserve it or to show kindness when it is in your power and right to withhold it.

The second was that the Lord is compassionate.  Compassion is to give aid, comfort, and empathetic understanding to those who are suffering.

Both grace and compassion are acts of the one who is in authority or has power over another one who is unworthy to receive grace or compassion.

SLOW TO ANGER
God must be slow to anger; we are each of us living evidence to His patience because if He was quick to execute judgment each of us would have come to our end long ago.

Jonah should have been grateful that the Lord is slow to anger because he himself had disobeyed and was the object of God's judgment.  Even then God was holding back since God's wrath could have been far worse than a stormy sea and ingestion by a fish.

ABOUNDING IN LOVE
God is not only loving but He is abounding in love, His love is beyond boundaries, and past all measures.  He shows compassion and mercy countless of times to each of the earth's billions of souls every day- that is love which cannot be measured.

A GOD WHO RELENTS FROM SENDING CALAMITY
God may is swayed by our repentance.  It is like He favors forgiveness as if all else were equal He would go with the forgiveness.

The people of Nineveh heard God's message, they repented of their sin and turned to God, so they were spared.  The Gospel promises the same for each of us

To learn more about how you can find complete forgiveness for all your sins see my other post.

(c) Adron 6/3/15

Why Can We Count on God? Psalm 86:5

Many things can be said of God. He is all-powerful, all-knowing, beyond time, but can we say God is right for me?

"You are forgiving and good, O Lord, abounding in love to all who call to you." Psalm 86:5, NIV. 

FORGIVENESS
God is ready to forgive those things that stand between us and him. Forgiveness is an act of the will and a decision. It is a response based on character, but with God forgiveness is something more. As one who is holy and righteous forgiveness would conflict with his holiness and righteousness; but he is good and sent his son to pay for the things that offend him so forgiveness is available without compromise.

GOOD
Good is a value judgment that reflects a standard, but God's goodness is more. To say God is good is to say that there is no evil in him. God's goodness is not temporary and does not change or else it would not be truly good. We can count on God because he is good.

LOVE
To say God abounds in love is different than the emotional love we feel as human beings. Often our love is self-centered and needs gratification. God's love may have passion but it is a choice of favoring mankind. God demonstrates his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for our sins, see Romans 5:8.

LORD
The title given to God in this verse of the Bible is not merely poetic, it is the Lord. Lord means one who rules and has authority. It is a great encouragement to think that the one who commands the sun, moon, and stars is also forgiving and good.

ABOUNDING
Abounding is something that is overabundant, it means there is so much of something that it breaks the boundaries. God's love goes beyond all the boundaries; it is measureless and is limitless. Nothing we can say or do will use it up, nothing we feel or experience can diminish it, there is as much love for us in our worst days as our brightest.

WAITING
God's love is waiting. It is unloving to force yourself on someone- in fact, it is arrogant. God is waiting for us to call to him. To call on the Lord may be a prayer; it may be a desperate cry of anguish, it may be faith, but it must be from the heart and it must be in truth.

We can count on him, he is the God we need; he is waiting, let us call on him.

To find out more about calling on the Lord see my other blog follow this link: click here.

(c) Adron 3/1/13

Forgiveness is not so simple. Psalm 103: 9, 10.

We say God’s ways are not our ways, but what are God’s ways, and what do they tell us about God?

“He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; He does not treat us as our sins deserve, or repay us according to our iniquities.” Psalm 103:9, 10. NIV.

What hope these words offer! God is a God of forgiveness, not causal forgiveness but mercy on many levels; His accusations cease, His anger abates, His actions are amended, and our iniquities are voided out.

ANGER
We are shocked to read that God does have anger. We want God to be the wonderful mushy grandfather in the sky who gives gifts to the good and winks at the bad. Yet, God does have anger at the wrongs we do, the sins we commit, and the good we neglect to do. He would be cheap if it were otherwise.

ACCUSE
What good news that God “will not always accuse.”  God sees every wrong we do, and if He wished, God could call us into judgment whenever He wanted. He is our creator and father and has the right to require the fidelity of mankind, and as Lord of the universe, He is right to condemn our sin and us. To say God “will not always accuse” suggest there is a time when accusation and judgment will cease, and our guilt will be erased.

MERCY
God is not like us, we harbor anger or carry a grudge for decades until it taints every relationship and act, even to our own injury, but God does not bear a vindictive grudge forever. He does not treat us as our sins deserve or according to our iniquities. If he did, we would all be lost long ago. Each day we live, we do so as a testament to His mercy, forgiveness, and His Grace.

HOW?
How is it that “God will not Harbor His anger forever?” God’s anger is vented somewhere on someone or something. The Bible reveals that God spent His wrath on His Son Jesus on the cross. He placed our sin on His Holy Son and vented His just anger against those sins there. Not only was the fury of the wrath of God against our sin exhausted on Jesus, but He also offers eternal life to any who accept His Son’s sacrifice on their behalf. He did this for us, and we can say, “Indeed He does not treat us as our sins deserve.”

To learn how to find eternal forgiveness in Christ, click here to see my other post about the Gospel.

(c)Adron Dozat 10/11/10

Where To Find Peace From Guilt

People try everything to free themselves of guilt. We turn to alcohol, drugs, or relationships to cope with its oppression, yet without success. Is there any hope?.

“Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.” Psalm 32:1. NIV.

BLESSED
The scripture quoted starts with “blessed,” which could be translated as happy or joyful. This kind of blessing only comes from God. A “transgression” is to violate the law. To cover a wrong is to meet the demands of justice so that what is owed is canceled and judgment is lifted.

FORGIVENESS
Repeating the same thing, “Transgressions are forgiven” and “Sins are covered,” is a beautiful poetic device but more- it is gloriously hopeful. The doubling statement suggests extraordinary, uncommon complete forgiveness. You can say sins are not just forgiven but are out of sight and completely forgotten forever.

COVERED
Payment for sins was made on the cross. “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds, you have been healed.”(1 Peter 2:4.). Jesus lived a life free of sin then he took our sins. Because his good work satisfies justice, we have the assurance that his death for us is acceptable to God, and it is confirmed because Jesus rose from the tomb. The resurrection is a great affirmation; if God was not pleased with his payment, Jesus would have remained dead. Jesus rose from the dead and lives today with an eternal assurance that we can have our transgressions forgiven.

CHRIST
If you are haunted by guilt, then put your trust in Jesus. “All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” Acts 10:43. NIV. If you believe in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus on your behalf, then you will have the blessing of Forgiveness.


To find out how you can be sure your sins are covered, see my other blog.

A prayer.

Oh, God of Justice and of mercy
I have not yet received your complete forgiveness
I am guilty of sins against you and others
I know Jesus died to pay for my sins
And rose from the dead- proving he is victorious.
I trust Jesus to be my Savior from guilt and punishment
I receive your forgiveness and accept your blessing
From now on I will gladly serve you, my Savior.
I thank you, Father, for sending your Son to die for me
Thank you for the blessing of forgiveness.

(c) Adron 12/27/9

Where is The Proof Of An All Loving God? Romans 5: 7, 8.

Does God love mankind? Where is the proof of an all loving God?

“Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners Christ died for us.” Romans 5:7, 8. NIV.

NOT BEAUTIFUL
When it comes to love we love the beautiful, noble and worthy. The daily news demonstrates that man is not beautiful, but evil. Man has a problem- a wicked nature, call it “sin,” but being sinners we don’t like the word “sin” so we call it something else, a disorder, or an illness; which implies we can fix or cure it.

Yet generations of medicine and science has failed to expunge the nature of sin and its power in our private lives. If we could fix this problem we will fix war, famine, health care, poverty and all other evils. We try to fix sin with programs, rules, laws and efforts; but they are no better than the flawed humans who devise them.

GOD LOVES THE UGLY
But God loves us even in our ugly, sinful, evil, and wicked ways, and so addresses this sin issue. He begins with our most basic need- forgiveness. This means our sin must be taken away, and the threat of punishment removed.

It is in full view of our wickedness that God makes a way, for it says, "While we were still sinners Christ died for us." Before we were redeemable God redeems us. He does what we can’t do. He sees our need for salvation and forgiveness and since we can’t attain it ourselves God makes the full provision for it. He Himself pays for our sin and erases the threat of judgment forever. God didn't wait for us to become righteous or good and this is great news because we never could be.

LOVED TO DEATH
Only Christ can deliver us from sin. The death of Jesus as our substitute for punishment succeeds. Only Jesus’ death is ratified by God and endorsed via the resurrection. His death is the ultimate expression of love. Whatever our sins are we can be assured of God’s love for us since He already demonstrated it on the Cross.

To learn more about coming to God's love and having eternal life see my other blog.

(c) Adron

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Adron

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