Matthew 6:14 For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
Greetings my beautiful Friends in Christ! Today seems like another one with showers of blessings, but that’s all for the good since Mother earth is starving for nourishment. Our God though, never ceases to amaze me. He’s not only a Master Timer, but also a Master Strategist. Yesterday, I planned to write a Bit on Forgiveness, but was sidetracked to the verse from Amos. Later on I discovered why. The tape of Uncle Charles’ sermon, (Charles Stanley) that I decided to watch, dealt with the same topic, and he had a few definitions that I thought were important enough to share. I don’t have the time, space or knowledge to break it down as detailed as he did, but I’ll pull it together in my own way. Oh one other important thing, I didn’t have to search for the Bit scripture either, I got it right from the sermon too. The oft unnoticed, but quite significant verse that Jesus spoke after He’d given the disciples a generic plan for praying, which we call the Lord’s Prayer. Note, His first words after detailing the prayer were: ‘For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.’ (Mat.6:14-15) Oh my people, those are some of the most important words Jesus ever spoke. They are the basic foundation for the Christian faith. If you can’t or refuse to forgive, then you shouldn’t be calling yourself a Christian; a follower of Christ. To show its overriding importance, Jesus not only includes it in His prayer to the Father; ‘And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.’ (Mat.6:12) But He also points it out to them right after, and some of His last words before he died on the cross were: ‘Father, forgive them: for they know not what they do.’ (Luke 23:34) Yes my Friends, forgiveness was possibly the biggest principle, the chief cornerstone of Jesus’ teaching. Oh, and how can I forget that it was His Father’s overwhelming desire to have us cleansed and forgiven of our sins that led Him to sacrifice His only Son, Jesus. That means if we’re to follow in Jesus’ footsteps, forgiveness must be an exceedingly large part of our nature and our walk. You can’t consider yourself a true Christian unless you’re willing to forgive. It’s not always easy, but we must pursue it for Jesus’ sake. Let’s turn to the definitions I promised. The first is Anger: Uncle Charles describes it as; ‘A strong feeling of intense displeasure, hostility or indignation as a result of a real or imagined threat, insult, frustration or injustice towards yourself or others important to you.’ I think it’s an excellent definition that seems to cover all the bases. We get angry, hostile or displeased when we feel wronged, be it true or false. Now what are we supposed to do with this anger? I don’t remember exactly how Uncle Charles classified them, but I’ll call them good and bad anger. The good kind being when it drives us to get up off our fannies and do something positive, while the bad kind is where the anger just remains in our souls, stays there and seethes, ferments like yeast in alcohol and finally turns to bitterness. Then we go around with a constantly sour, angry, scowling, bitter attitude, upset with everybody and everything. But oh mih people, that’s the worse thing we can ever allow to happen to us! It’s like acid in the plastic bottle that I’m always talking about. It might not do the other person anything, unless you get violent and attack them physically or verbally, but it’s certainly going to have a very negative and disastrous effect on you; eating away the container, you, just like the acid does to the plastic bottle. That negativity only steals your joy and Christian attitude, making your life a real hell here on earth. It does nothing to advance your maturity in Christ. On the contrary it can quite easily lead you to backslide. Remember what the Lord said about backsliders? All their righteousness shall be for nought. ‘All his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned: in his trespass that he hath trespassed, and in his sin that he hath sinned, in them shall he die.’ (Eze.18:24) But when the wicked forsakes evil and turns to right living; ‘All his transgressions that he hath committed, they shall not be mentioned unto him: in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live.’ (Eze.18:22) And Friends, there’s nothing that causes us to do wrong like anger, especially the bad kind. Remember it’s one of the enemy’s tricks, to get us upset and cause us to behave in an unchristian like manner. That means, if we’re going to live a successful life for Christ, then we desperately need to control our anger; Lucifer’s negative tool. It’s not easy, especially now that our world is going through a tough time that’s causing all the negative emotions to be very predominant. We, as followers of Christ, have the difficult task to harness and channel them in good, positive, productive ways. Ah mih breddren, it’s a rough and rocky road we have chosen to travel. But the rewards mih people…Oh the rewards are fabulous! Salvation and Eternal Life with the Holy Triumvirate! Wow! What could be better? NOTHING! Hn! I thought one Bit would suffice, obviously not, so, God willing, we’ll continue it tomorrow. Till then Friends, let’s try to keep a tight rein on our anger so it doesn’t cause us to backslide. Much LOVE!…the first step to forgiveness… reducing and channelling anger…
Greetings my beautiful Friends in Christ! Today seems like another one with showers of blessings, but that’s all for the good since Mother earth is starving for nourishment. Our God though, never ceases to amaze me. He’s not only a Master Timer, but also a Master Strategist. Yesterday, I planned to write a Bit on Forgiveness, but was sidetracked to the verse from Amos. Later on I discovered why. The tape of Uncle Charles’ sermon, (Charles Stanley) that I decided to watch, dealt with the same topic, and he had a few definitions that I thought were important enough to share. I don’t have the time, space or knowledge to break it down as detailed as he did, but I’ll pull it together in my own way. Oh one other important thing, I didn’t have to search for the Bit scripture either, I got it right from the sermon too. The oft unnoticed, but quite significant verse that Jesus spoke after He’d given the disciples a generic plan for praying, which we call the Lord’s Prayer. Note, His first words after detailing the prayer were: ‘For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.’ (Mat.6:14-15) Oh my people, those are some of the most important words Jesus ever spoke. They are the basic foundation for the Christian faith. If you can’t or refuse to forgive, then you shouldn’t be calling yourself a Christian; a follower of Christ. To show its overriding importance, Jesus not only includes it in His prayer to the Father; ‘And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.’ (Mat.6:12) But He also points it out to them right after, and some of His last words before he died on the cross were: ‘Father, forgive them: for they know not what they do.’ (Luke 23:34) Yes my Friends, forgiveness was possibly the biggest principle, the chief cornerstone of Jesus’ teaching. Oh, and how can I forget that it was His Father’s overwhelming desire to have us cleansed and forgiven of our sins that led Him to sacrifice His only Son, Jesus. That means if we’re to follow in Jesus’ footsteps, forgiveness must be an exceedingly large part of our nature and our walk. You can’t consider yourself a true Christian unless you’re willing to forgive. It’s not always easy, but we must pursue it for Jesus’ sake. Let’s turn to the definitions I promised. The first is Anger: Uncle Charles describes it as; ‘A strong feeling of intense displeasure, hostility or indignation as a result of a real or imagined threat, insult, frustration or injustice towards yourself or others important to you.’ I think it’s an excellent definition that seems to cover all the bases. We get angry, hostile or displeased when we feel wronged, be it true or false. Now what are we supposed to do with this anger? I don’t remember exactly how Uncle Charles classified them, but I’ll call them good and bad anger. The good kind being when it drives us to get up off our fannies and do something positive, while the bad kind is where the anger just remains in our souls, stays there and seethes, ferments like yeast in alcohol and finally turns to bitterness. Then we go around with a constantly sour, angry, scowling, bitter attitude, upset with everybody and everything. But oh mih people, that’s the worse thing we can ever allow to happen to us! It’s like acid in the plastic bottle that I’m always talking about. It might not do the other person anything, unless you get violent and attack them physically or verbally, but it’s certainly going to have a very negative and disastrous effect on you; eating away the container, you, just like the acid does to the plastic bottle. That negativity only steals your joy and Christian attitude, making your life a real hell here on earth. It does nothing to advance your maturity in Christ. On the contrary it can quite easily lead you to backslide. Remember what the Lord said about backsliders? All their righteousness shall be for nought. ‘All his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned: in his trespass that he hath trespassed, and in his sin that he hath sinned, in them shall he die.’ (Eze.18:24) But when the wicked forsakes evil and turns to right living; ‘All his transgressions that he hath committed, they shall not be mentioned unto him: in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live.’ (Eze.18:22) And Friends, there’s nothing that causes us to do wrong like anger, especially the bad kind. Remember it’s one of the enemy’s tricks, to get us upset and cause us to behave in an unchristian like manner. That means, if we’re going to live a successful life for Christ, then we desperately need to control our anger; Lucifer’s negative tool. It’s not easy, especially now that our world is going through a tough time that’s causing all the negative emotions to be very predominant. We, as followers of Christ, have the difficult task to harness and channel them in good, positive, productive ways. Ah mih breddren, it’s a rough and rocky road we have chosen to travel. But the rewards mih people…Oh the rewards are fabulous! Salvation and Eternal Life with the Holy Triumvirate! Wow! What could be better? NOTHING! Hn! I thought one Bit would suffice, obviously not, so, God willing, we’ll continue it tomorrow. Till then Friends, let’s try to keep a tight rein on our anger so it doesn’t cause us to backslide. Much LOVE!…the first step to forgiveness… reducing and channelling anger…
SCRIP-BITS 