"Look straight ahead with honest confidence; don't hang your head
in shame." (Proverbs 4:25 TEV)
God wants to forgive you. Imagine a giant blackboard with all of your sins written across it and God comes along with a giant eraser and erases it all. It's like an Etch A Sketch: You turn it upside down and shake it, then turn it back up, and the slate is clean. That's good news, isn't it?
But we need to accept God's forgiveness. We may know about God's forgiveness intellectually, but we need to believe it, deep down inside, accepting in faith that it is true — because it is!
One thing that often blocks us from accepting forgiveness from God is that we are unable to forgive ourselves. You need to forgive yourself for your past failures and sins, for the habits and hang-ups that led you to sin. Forgive yourself!
God wants you to forgive yourself. He teaches us to “look straight ahead with honest confidence; don't hang your head in shame” (Proverbs 4:25 TEV).
Have you ever committed a sin and asked God to forgive you, and, even though you know he's forgiven you, you still feel lousy? What do you do in that situation? Do you go back and ask him to forgive you again? Confess it again, over and over?
No. You only have to confess a sin one time, and it's forgiven. But you may have to forgive yourself a hundred times and say it over and over until it sinks in: "God's forgiven me. It's over.”
Our problem is that we want to keep reminding God of things he's already forgotten. It's forgiven and forgotten. You've already dealt with it. Someone once asked Eleanor Roosevelt, "How did you accomplish so much with your life?" She replied, "I never waste time with regrets."
Don’t waste time with your regrets. Accept God's forgiveness, and forgive yourself.
Talk About It
How does your life demonstrate that you are living fully in God's forgiveness and grace? What do you need to forgive yourself for today? How does God’s grace apply to you?
Rick Warren is the founding pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake
Forest, Calif., one of America's largest and most influential churches. Rick is
author of the New York Times bestseller "The Purpose Driven
Life." His book, "The Purpose Driven
Church," was named one of the 100 Christian
books that changed the 20th century. He is also the founder of Pastors.com,
a global Internet community for pastors.
Compassion
Pastor Mark Jeske
If this were reality TV, here's how the story would continue. "But while he was still a long way off, his father's security guards spotted him and relayed the message. The father gave strict orders that his wastrel offspring was never to set foot on the family estate again, and if he tried, the dogs should be set on him."
Here's how the Bible describes the father, your Father: "But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him, and kissed him" (Luke 15:20).
There is hardly a more beautiful description in the entire Bible of grace, which is God's decision to love unlovable people because of Jesus' willing death on Calvary. Jesus wants you to know that you can always count on the Father's mercy, because it is not based on your performance.
Compassion means that the father felt his son's shame and pain. And get this: he didn't make his son crawl. The father ran to embrace his prodigal bonehead. Wouldn't you like to be in your heavenly Father's embrace right now?
Today's Grace Moment is based on the following story:
The Two Sons
When Jesus first told this parable, his proper hearers must have popped a vein. Jesus seems at first to be advocating criminal behavior. Actually he is doing nothing of the sort. Once you get his point, you will never forget it. The outrageous analogy between a crooked manager and the Christian life is a great illustration of how to invest God's money knowing that time is short.
http://www.timeofgrace.org/
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