Forgiveness Starts With You

Forgiveness…it’s hard to give, it’s hard to receive but in the end it can be life changing! I have recently been going through a study and one week we focused completely on forgiveness! With one step, forgiveness can take away all of the rubble that has been left behind from ship wrecks and can ultimately change our lives and the direction we are heading!

But how am I supposed to forgive them for this horrible thing? We must first start at ground zero – with you. We are not perfect people – yet God gives us an endless supply of forgiveness!

Conviction
Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am in distress. My sight is blurred because of my tears. My body and soul are withering away. I am dying from grief; my years are shortened by sadness. Misery has drained my strength; I am wasting away from within. Psalm 31:9-l0
You must first acknowledge and know that you are a sinful person (as are we all) that needs the grace of Christ Jesus – our Savoir!

Confession:
Oh Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your rage. Have compassion on me, Lord, for I am weak. Heal me, Lord, for my body is in agony. I am sick at heart…I am worn out from sobbing. Every night tears drench my bed; my pillow is wet from weeping. My vision is blurred with grief. Psalm 6:1-3, 6-7a
You must identify what is the truth and what is right --straight in the face, then you must confess your sin to God. God knows everything about us before it happens (Psalm 139:16) – but He wants us to confess it and hand it over to Him.

Repentance:
But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong. 1 John 1:9
Once you have confessed you sin – you can’t go right back to doing that sin! You must repent of your sin and turn away from it to face the Lord (Psalm 34:5).

Acknowledgment of Authority:
I – yes, I alone – am the one who blots out your transgressions for my own sake and will remember them no more. Isaiah 43:25
You must know and truly believe in your heart of hearts that the death of Jesus has paid the price of our sin – you must believe that because of that ultimate sacrifice that was made that ALL of your sins are forgiven through his blood (Isaiah 1:18).

Request for Forgiveness:
People who conceal their sins will not prosper, but if they confess and turn from them, they will receive mercy. Proverbs 28:13
This is the easy part – ask the Lord for forgiveness – you just have to do this once and then it is wiped away – and in His eyes like it never happened (Jeremiah 31:34).

Acceptance of Forgiveness:
I have swept away your sins like the morning mists. I have scattered your offences like the clouds. Oh, return to me, for I have paid the price to set you free. Isaiah 44:22
You do it once. Then that’s it right? For God – yes, for you – it might take some work to have peace about it. There was one year that I was struggling with something that I had done. I knew that I must confess it and hand it over to God and ask for forgiveness. I felt the weight of my sin lifted from me Easter 2012 when I was at the Maundy Thursday service at my local church, but I still have to remind myself that I am forgiven and that Christ has made the sacrifice to pay for my sin – oh what a precious gift to be given!

Forgiveness of Others:
If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins. Matthew 6:14-15
Forgiveness is a flowing process – we receive forgiveness from God – so we must allow that forgiveness to flow through us out to others. We are given an endless amount of forgiveness – to a point that it is overflowing to those around us – we gotta let it flow! We must forgive as we have been forgiven (Matthew 6:12).

An excerpt from Beth Moore's Jesus, the One and Only:

We have a sin problem. We are powerless to help ourselves. Give the right set of circumstances and the wrong state of mind, each of us is capable of just about anything.

I can remember being so devastated over a sin I had allowed to ensnare me that I repeatedly begged God to forgive me. I was repentant the very first time I begged; I confessed my sin with great sorrow and turned radically from it. Still, I continued to plead for forgiveness.

One day God spoke to my heart and said: “Beth, my child, you have an authority problem. You think you can do your part, which is to repent. You just don’t think I can do my part, which is to forgive.”

I was stunned. I began to realize that my sin of unbelief was as serious as my prior sin of rebellion. I wept and repented for my failure to credit Him. With the authority He possessed to forgive my sins. It was eye opening.

My constant re-confessions did not bring me relief. They only made me more miserable and filled me with self-loathing. Relief came when I decided to take God at His Word.

If you have truly repented – which means you have experienced godly sorrow and a subsequent detour from the sin – bathe yourself in the river of God’s forgiveness. Christ has authority to forgive sins right here on earth, you don’t have to wait until heaven. You can experience the freedom of complete forgiveness right here, right now. Fall under Christ’s authority and accept His grace. You’ve been paralyzed long enough, child of God. Hear Him say to you this day: “Friend, your sins are forgiven…I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” Luke 5:20, 24

Go out and live in the freedom that God has given us with His forgiveness! Once you have accepted His forgiveness and are walking in the freedom you have received from Him, you will have an overflow of grace to forgive those who have wronged you.

-Megan Polis

The Struggle

While Christians in the Mideast are giving up their lives for the sake of Christ, I am met with the realization that daily I am sometimes unwilling to give up even the little temptations that I know hold back the ability of the Spirit to work through me.  This causes me to wonder, would I give up my last breath, too?  And the obligatory self-loathing ensues.  In Romans 7:19-25, Paul launched into one brain-bender of a pity party, too:

“For I do not do the good that I want to do, but I practice the evil that I do not want to do.  Now if I do what I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but it is the sin that lives in me.  So I discover this principle: When I want to do what is good, evil is with me.  For in my inner self I joyfully agree with God’s law.  But I see a different law in the the parts of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me prisoner to the law of sin in the parts of my body.  What a wretched man I am!  Who will rescue me from this dying body?  I thank God through Christ Jesus our Lord!  So then, with my mind I myself am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh to the law of sin."

Clearly this man who DID go on to give his life up for the cause of Christ is STRUUUUGGLING with a capital UGH and evidently dealt with a “thorn in the flesh” along the way. (2 Cor 12:7-9)

Cue “The Accuser”… as if we didn’t already feel bad enough on our own, Satan roams about seeking whom he may destroy with his “special set of skills” which includes accusing believers before God and everybody, day and night. (Rev. 12: 10)  As we know, most lies contain a nugget of truth, otherwise no one would ever fall for them.  So the Father of Lies (the Devil) takes our screw-up(s) and proceeds to convince us that we are disqualified from being useful for Christ because of them.  If not forever, he at least makes us to feel that we need to sit in the penalty box for a bit before God can use us again.  The dirt has to wear off of our hands with time before we can be made clean enough to handle things like the Word of God and prayer, or so we think.  But the truth is that through the saving work of Christ, we are as clean as the freshly fallen snow!

Confession and repentance are necessary parts of our walk and growing in Him but our qualification as servants of the Most High God has nothing to do with us and EVERYTHING to do with the completed work of Christ on the cross. Just in case we were uncertain, he even said on the cross, “It is finished” to prevent any confusion. (John 19:30)

So what?  What does this mean to us moving forward? How does this play out in real life? What can I do when I feel defeated in this cycle of failure? 

1) Restart your dialogue (prayer) with the Father immediately, if not sooner.  Repent (agree with God about your sin) if you haven’t already.

2) When thoughts invade and accuse, recognize their source, and let the enemy of your soul  know that you may have screwed up for the 786^th time, but the blood of Christ covers all your sins and has already paid the price for them.

3) Look for a way to turn your failure into a victory.  The Lord redeems our broken places and uses them for good.  He not only binds up the brokenhearted (Isaiah 61:1), he uses our brokenness to help others.  Kind of like today, when I screwed up for the 786^th time and God still allowed these words to flow through my hands, my weak, grimy, painfully human hands and into your heart, through the power of the Spirit, for His glory.  So look for a way that your experience can help someone else and so serve the body of Christ.

-Renee Moreland

A Heaping Helping of Forgiveness

Proverbs 25:21-22: “If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink; for so you will heap coals of fire on his head, and the Lord will reward you.

Mother Theresa said, “If we really want to love we must learn how to forgive.”  I hope that challenges you as it challenges me.  God’s top two clearly stated priorities are for us to love Him with all we are and have and to love others as our self (Luke 10:27), so it would seem paramount to focus on what can qualify (or disqualify) us for loving.

When I experience offense, and that’s pretty often as my work takes me into high-conflict arenas, I’m sometimes not feeling so much like Mother Theresa.  More like the Tasmanian devil, I think.  So I find that I have to abide and keep on abiding in Him and ask the Lord to let me see that offender as He does.  But the subject verse (Prov. 25:21-22) is dripping with grace for me and for you in those times of hanging onto the vine.

God has a lot to say about forgiveness in the Bible. That’s not surprising since as C.S. Lewis says, “To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.”  But here, in particular, I believe God is speaking to His children in the time when they’re struggling most to be ambassadors of His grace.  Rather than reminding you of who your offender is to Him, which requires abiding, or how much He’s forgiven in you or me (which he does often elsewhere, e.g., Matt. 18), in this passage, He gives us a construct for thinking about forgiving that even a Tasmanian Devil can grasp onto.  It’s as if He’d say to us, do what you should, and I’ll take care of the rest.  He reminds us here that He takes care of what your offender and mine deserves and what we deserve, too.

The grace here reminds me of what He says about divorce:  it was given through Moses not because God likes divorce.  He hates it.  Divorce was permitted because of people’s hard hearts (Matt 19:7-8).  In other words, God made a provision even for something He hates knowing His children would sometimes not love others as He intended and desires. Similarly, although He desires that we love our enemies and those who offend us as He has loved us – unconditionally, He makes a way for us to think about loving our enemies that we can stomach while we’re in Tasmanian Devil mode.  He lets me say: I’m going to love that person so much that the term ‘hot head’ will have new meaning to my offender!

God’s desire is that I neither give nor take offense, that none shall perish, that all reconcile to Him.  That’s His plan from Genesis to Revelation, but He knows His dust and bone-made people fail to stay focused or committed to His priorities.  We fail to love well in our hot head moments. If you’re struggling to forgive an offense (large or small), I pray this passage will give you a stepping stone of grace to start down or stay on the path to His priorities.

-Andrea Kim

Empowered by The Spirit

“So he answered me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by strength or by might, but by My Spirit,’ says the Lord of Hosts.”  Zechariah 4:6.

The Lord can give us holy ambition.  A desire to achieve great things for His Glory and Kingdom.  And we should certainly believe Him for great Kingdom miracles.  But maybe lately you’ve looked around at your day-to-day routine, at the steps you’re taking in faith for Him (both forward and backward) and are struggling to see how something great, something BIG, something awe inspiring is going to come of it all. 

Perhaps we’re most susceptible to getting down or growing weary of doing good when we’re looking inside ourselves and seeing the chasm between our holiness and the holiness of Jesus.  The more I walk closely with Jesus, the more I appreciate just how far I fall short and consequently how much Jesus had to pay for with the richness of His gift of salvation.  So with the goggles of grace I see just how big my sin has been and just how huge his love and sacrifice measures.

So then what do I do with this holy ambition when I look around and think: all of this doesn’t add up to His glory?  How is my day of filling the car with gas, picking up a taquito (or maybe 2 or 3), running errands, running to work, or waiting in a long line of cars going to square with this God-sized desire in me? Whether He’s placed a specific desire in your heart to be His instrument for a nation or a people or a need that He wants to meet or your passion for Him is just starting to burn and you know you want to be used mightily but aren’t sure what that looks like, the Lord has a Word of encouragement for you. 

A small group of people just returned from Babylonian captivity (God’s discipline for a disobedient people), hounded by naysayers and would-be attackers, just having left a long season of correction, surrounded on all sides by reminders of their disobedience in the ruin and rubble around them were called to a God-sized task for His glory: rebuilding and protecting the Temple.  Talk about discouraged. Any of that sound like where you are?  Naysayers on every side? A lot of broken down, not a lot of built up? More failures than triumphs? 

Zechariah, known as the prophet of hope, delivered God’s Word to the leaders who were undoubtedly looking around thinking that their holy ambition didn’t square with that scene.  From their own wilted spirit, they were tempted to give up.  How could they build the temple from ruins, let alone protect it with their small contingent?  In Zechariah chapter 4, an incredibly rich, encouraging passage, the Lord gave the prophet a Word for one of their leaders, Zerubbabel. 

First, the Lord confirmed His vision of the holy ambition: He described the image of a beautiful lampstand representing the temple and the Jewish believers who would stand under and hold up the light of the Lord’s glory for the world to see.  Sometimes we need visual aids.  Then, the Lord helped Zerubbabel understand that the resources for the glory-shining, God-honoring work of holy ambition - the Temple - would be supplied “not by strength or by might, but by My Spirit.”  Your strength will not be the deciding factor.  Your supplier will be the Spirit of the King of the Universe, the Creator, all knowing, all powerful God.  And what’s more, the Lord assured him that no obstacle is bigger than He is.  Zech 4:7: “‘What are you, great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you will become a plain. And he will bring out the capstone accompanied by shouts of: Grace, grace to it!’”  In other words, when Zerubabbel’s empowered by God, mountains better watch out.  Yes, God can make mountains into plains.  And, by the way, God’s ambitious plan will be finished: Zerubbabel will put the final stone, the capstone on that Temple.

Finally, and don’t miss this, the Lord encouraged Zerubbabel in the day-to-day: “For who scorns the day of small things? These seven eyes of the Lord, which scan throughout the whole earth, will rejoice when they see the plumb line [that line of stones topped by the chosen capstone] in Zerubbabel’s hand.” (v.10).  It was as if God was saying to Zerubbabel:  you may think each day that what you’re doing is small and insignificant, but what you do is significant in the Kingdom because I see it all and I, Myself, the King of Glory, rejoice when I see my completed work in you and by your hand. 

Nothing in your life goes unnoticed.  When you’re running errands, running to work, doing the small things, the Master is watching and rejoicing in the work He’s done and continues to do (Phil 1:6) on His Temple, the Temple of the Holy Spirit:  You.

-Andrea Kim

Hey, Y'all!  Welcome to the Radiant Blog!  We are so excited you found us!  As an extension of the Radiant Life Bible study class at Houston's First Baptist Church, we hope that the words you read here are challenging and comforting, encouraging you in your pursuit of Christ and His pursuit of you.

Each week, we will be posting contributions from a variety of real women who have stress, histories, struggles, and victories.  We will even get a some sneak peeks of upcoming Sunday lessons from Andrea Kim.  

       

If you're like me and not great at checking back on your favorite blogs, no worries, a link for each new post will be available on the Radiant Facebook page or you can have it sent directly to your email address.

This blog is here for you and me and "all the single ladies, all the single ladies" so please comment, share, retweet, invite friends and interact!  We have so much that we can learn from each other and as iron sharpens iron, so on person sharpens another (Prov. 27:17).  

That song is still stuck in your head isn't it.

So let's talk...what do you think it means to be "radiant" as a single woman following Christ?
I can't wait to see your comments!!!