Psalm 130:4 But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.
It’s day number three of 2010 Friends! How are we doing with those resolutions? I sure hope one of them was to conscientiously celebrate the Sabbath, refreshing your mind, body and soul in the Lord with praise and fellowship, so that you can face the enemy fresh, lively and agile on Monday morning, and you’re not already breaking it this the first week of the New Year. A Bruh Paulian sentence! (smile) Anyway, as promised, we’ll continue talking today about forgiveness, and how it brings such peace to one’s soul. Now, in many cases it’s not easy to forgive those who’ve wronged or hurt us severely, and it might take a long while to accomplish, but the point is, if we expect forgiveness from others for our wrongs, then we must also be prepared to forgive others. That was Jesus’ first, last and only word on the subject. And like many things in life, we won’t accomplish it unless we work steadfastly at it, cause if we let unforgiveness grow and fester in our hearts and souls, then we’ll just become bitter people, fixated on hatred and revenge. And you know what that means Friends? That we’re in cahoots with the enemy, because a bitter, resentful person cannot truly work on God’s behalf since the overwhelming, essential part of God’s being is LOVE, from which flows everything else. Oh Friends, contrary to what many think, forgiveness is not for the other person, it’s mainly for us, for our peace of mind. We are the chief beneficiaries of forgiveness. Remember too, our quote from yesterday said that ‘To forgive is the highest, most beautiful form of LOVE.’ And if you don’t believe it, just check out our God. Why do you think He sent His Only Son Jesus into the world to die for us? Because in addition to being LOVING, He’s also just and righteous. In His LOVE alone, He could have wiped out our sins with a simple wave of His hand, but to fulfill the just and righteous part, our monumental mountain of sins had to be paid for, and by a totally innocent person, otherwise the whole exercise would be rendered trite and meaningless. And who are the only totally innocent, sinless persons in the world eh? The triune Godhead! The Father couldn’t come cause He was running the show. Neither could The Holy Spirit cause He was the messenger. That left only the Son, Jesus. Poor fella. He had to bear the brunt, pay the exorbitant ransom for our sins with His innocent life? Why? Because the Father LOVED us so much, was hurting due to our excessively sinful nature, and wanted to bring us back to Him in a way that would never require or necessitate any more sacrifices. Oh my people, I doubt we can ever truly understand or comprehend the nature of that LOVE cause it’s so overwhelming. We all LOVE our children, but how many would really volunteer to sacrifice their only son for a bunch of worthless, ungrateful sinners? Not very many, unless you didn’t really LOVE your son. But that’s how much the Lord LOVED us. It was the only way our sins could be forgiven in a just and righteous manner. And even before the Lord sent Jesus to die for us, His mercy and forgiveness were well known. Yesterday we heard what He said to Moses on Mt.Sinai, and how Nehemiah stressed His forgiving nature when he pleaded for help to rebuild Jerusalem. Let’s look now at some other instances where the Old Testament faithful proclaimed the Lord’s great attribute of forgiveness. And yuh know Friends, nobody says it better then mih boy, Bruh David. Yes, I’m biased. (smile) ‘For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee.’ (Ps.86:5) And surely Bruh David wouldn’t lie about something so serious. Neither would Isaiah, that great spokesperson of God, when he said: ‘Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.’ (Isa.55:7) Now hear Daniel, another Old Testament stalwart. ‘To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses, though we have rebelled against him.’ (Dan.9:9) So Friends, we see that from long before Jesus came, our God was real big on forgiveness. Then to top it all, He sent Jesus to pay the whopping price needed to redeem us, so that we could be forgiven forever if we believed on Jesus’ Name. Why? Because of His exceeding great LOVE for us. Price was no object. He’d pay any price just to get His beautiful, handmade creations, created in His image, back to His fold. He was too concerned with our eternal life to just let us be lost forever in outer darkness with the evil Lucifer as our guardian. And Friends, if that most dramatic, touching and heart-warming story of such an overwhelming LOVE, with no conditions whatsoever attached, planned and perfectly executed by the Lord on our behalf, doesn’t grip, touch and move you right down in the very depths of you heart, soul and spirit; if the greatest LOVE Story ever told doesn’t make you a firm believer…Hn! Then I don’t know what will. Much LOVE!…to err is human…to forgive is divine…let’s become divine nuh…
It’s day number three of 2010 Friends! How are we doing with those resolutions? I sure hope one of them was to conscientiously celebrate the Sabbath, refreshing your mind, body and soul in the Lord with praise and fellowship, so that you can face the enemy fresh, lively and agile on Monday morning, and you’re not already breaking it this the first week of the New Year. A Bruh Paulian sentence! (smile) Anyway, as promised, we’ll continue talking today about forgiveness, and how it brings such peace to one’s soul. Now, in many cases it’s not easy to forgive those who’ve wronged or hurt us severely, and it might take a long while to accomplish, but the point is, if we expect forgiveness from others for our wrongs, then we must also be prepared to forgive others. That was Jesus’ first, last and only word on the subject. And like many things in life, we won’t accomplish it unless we work steadfastly at it, cause if we let unforgiveness grow and fester in our hearts and souls, then we’ll just become bitter people, fixated on hatred and revenge. And you know what that means Friends? That we’re in cahoots with the enemy, because a bitter, resentful person cannot truly work on God’s behalf since the overwhelming, essential part of God’s being is LOVE, from which flows everything else. Oh Friends, contrary to what many think, forgiveness is not for the other person, it’s mainly for us, for our peace of mind. We are the chief beneficiaries of forgiveness. Remember too, our quote from yesterday said that ‘To forgive is the highest, most beautiful form of LOVE.’ And if you don’t believe it, just check out our God. Why do you think He sent His Only Son Jesus into the world to die for us? Because in addition to being LOVING, He’s also just and righteous. In His LOVE alone, He could have wiped out our sins with a simple wave of His hand, but to fulfill the just and righteous part, our monumental mountain of sins had to be paid for, and by a totally innocent person, otherwise the whole exercise would be rendered trite and meaningless. And who are the only totally innocent, sinless persons in the world eh? The triune Godhead! The Father couldn’t come cause He was running the show. Neither could The Holy Spirit cause He was the messenger. That left only the Son, Jesus. Poor fella. He had to bear the brunt, pay the exorbitant ransom for our sins with His innocent life? Why? Because the Father LOVED us so much, was hurting due to our excessively sinful nature, and wanted to bring us back to Him in a way that would never require or necessitate any more sacrifices. Oh my people, I doubt we can ever truly understand or comprehend the nature of that LOVE cause it’s so overwhelming. We all LOVE our children, but how many would really volunteer to sacrifice their only son for a bunch of worthless, ungrateful sinners? Not very many, unless you didn’t really LOVE your son. But that’s how much the Lord LOVED us. It was the only way our sins could be forgiven in a just and righteous manner. And even before the Lord sent Jesus to die for us, His mercy and forgiveness were well known. Yesterday we heard what He said to Moses on Mt.Sinai, and how Nehemiah stressed His forgiving nature when he pleaded for help to rebuild Jerusalem. Let’s look now at some other instances where the Old Testament faithful proclaimed the Lord’s great attribute of forgiveness. And yuh know Friends, nobody says it better then mih boy, Bruh David. Yes, I’m biased. (smile) ‘For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee.’ (Ps.86:5) And surely Bruh David wouldn’t lie about something so serious. Neither would Isaiah, that great spokesperson of God, when he said: ‘Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.’ (Isa.55:7) Now hear Daniel, another Old Testament stalwart. ‘To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses, though we have rebelled against him.’ (Dan.9:9) So Friends, we see that from long before Jesus came, our God was real big on forgiveness. Then to top it all, He sent Jesus to pay the whopping price needed to redeem us, so that we could be forgiven forever if we believed on Jesus’ Name. Why? Because of His exceeding great LOVE for us. Price was no object. He’d pay any price just to get His beautiful, handmade creations, created in His image, back to His fold. He was too concerned with our eternal life to just let us be lost forever in outer darkness with the evil Lucifer as our guardian. And Friends, if that most dramatic, touching and heart-warming story of such an overwhelming LOVE, with no conditions whatsoever attached, planned and perfectly executed by the Lord on our behalf, doesn’t grip, touch and move you right down in the very depths of you heart, soul and spirit; if the greatest LOVE Story ever told doesn’t make you a firm believer…Hn! Then I don’t know what will. Much LOVE!…to err is human…to forgive is divine…let’s become divine nuh…
SCRIP-BITS 