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God’s Forgiveness

“Do not be afraid; you will not be put to shame. Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated. You will forget the shame of your youth and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood”-Isaiah 54:4

I find it harder to forgive myself than I do others. I think a lot of people are like that. But God doesn’t just forgive us, but because He loves us and understands us so well, He also ensures that we “forget” . What a great Gift:

“If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” – Matthew 7:11

So often I can forgive, but it is hard to forget. If there is something I have done wrong, I remember it forever. But God does not just forgive, He wipes our slate clean!

How Blessed are we!

Prepare, Pray and Be Ready!

Repentance

“Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.”-Isaiah 59:1-2

Repentance is truly important. It really has two components, sorrow for the sin that we have committed and change (in other words, a true commitment to not committing that sin again!). Jesus will always forgive those who are truly repentant.

But what is a true commitment to not committing that sin again? I will tell you what it is not. It is not necessarily never committing that same sin again. We are human and we fail. That is just the way it is. And if we fail, we just need to turn to Jesus and ask His forgiveness and get back up and try to change again :).

I will share with you what it is. Perhaps our sin is drinking too much. Stopping at the bar on that way home may make it very hard to avoid that sin!

Another thing we may want to avoid: fatigue. Perhaps our sin in being crabby and too critical in the evening. Being “too busy” and “too tired” may not help us to avoid that sin. So avoiding being too busy and too tired may be helpful.

How about lying? Avoiding any action that we would feel that need to lie about may be very helpful. How about white lies? Remembering that it is sometimes just easier to tell the truth may be helpful. For example, telling someone who invites us somewhere that we are too tired or need to stay home, may just be easier than claiming a prior commitment that does not exist.

Sin separates us from God. So we do not want any more sin in our lives than we really can’t seem to avoid. So we need to ask Jesus for Help and avoid them where we can!

There is a reason that the Our Father, which Jesus taught us to pray, ends with:

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.”-Matthew 6:13

Prepare, Pray & Be Ready!

Jesus Will Meet Us Wherever We Are :)

There are many who think that they need to wait to ask Jesus to be their Savior until “they have cleaned up their lives”. Perhaps there are some activities that they enjoy and that they fear they may not be able to enjoy anymore (if they ask Jesus to be their Savior). Perhaps there are some that lead(and often enjoy) a really sinful life, and they feel they are not quite ready to give that up yet. Whatever the reason, sadly, without Jesus, we can not enter Heaven.

But the truth is, Jesus will meet us wherever we are! He loves us that much :). There is no life style, no amount of sin, other than blaspheming the Holy Spirit, that can keep us from Jesus and that Jesus can not help us defeat. For Jesus has already won that battle and God forgives us through our relationship with Jesus :).

All we need is to ask Jesus to be our Savior, and ask Him to help us Follow Him, and He will 🙂

Prepare, Pray & Be Ready 🙂

We Need Not Be Separated From God!

“Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:”-Isaiah 59:1

How comforting this verse is! No matter how difficult the times we live in become, God will Save us 🙂

Isaiah 59:2 goes on to say:

“But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.”

While our sins may indeed separate us from God, Jesus has made a way for us to be forgiven and repent.

We need not be separated from God. It’s our choice, given to us by God Himself 🙂

Prepare, Pray & Be Ready 🙂

Warning: Sin Does Separate Us From God

Our Father can always save us! There is nothing on this earth that is as powerful as God and He loves us. We can trust in that 🙂

But sin does separate us from God and that is why repentance is so important. When we ask our Father to forgive us in Jesus’ Name and change our behavior, than God is no longer separated from us 🙂

More difficult days are coming. During them, the last thing we will want is to be separated from God in any way! Fortunately, we can repent every single day:).

God loves us and no matter what occurs in our world, God will hear the prayers of His people 🙂

Prepare, Pray & Be Ready!

True Forgiveness Is Hard!

“And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us” -Matthew 6:12

I am so grateful that Jesus gave us this prayer, because I sometimes struggle with this. Deciding to forgive someone feels relatively easy, but forgiving as God forgive us seems so much harder!

“As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.” -Psalm 103:12

This Bible verse is what I struggle with. I have sometimes decided to forgive someone (after all God forgives me :). But then I take it back! I start thinking of how much that person hurt me, and yet when God forgives our “transgressions”, our “transgressions“ become “as far as the “east is from the west”.

So what I really do sometimes I think, is I forgive someone, but then I take it back. As my friend often says, I am not Christian because I am so perfect, but because I need Help :).

And so when forgiveness is a struggle, I simply ask God for Help 🙂

Prepare, Pray & Be Ready…

We All Sin – But God Forgives Us :)

“Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, ²“Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before Me.” ³But Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord” – Jonah 1:1-3

Jonah did his best to flee from God. He knew it was wrong, but he did it anyway. But God forgave him and Jonah went on to become the prophet he was meant to be and to help the people of Nineveh.

We all make mistakes. Sometimes we even sin just outright and on purpose; we are disobedient. But God forgives us anyway, that’s why Jesus came 🙂

We need not fear to turn back to God when we have sinned; God loves us and He is waiting for us. And God will be filled with joy when we turn back to Him 🙂

Prepare, Pray and Be Ready!

Sin, Confession & Repentance

In Revelations 2:6, Jesus talks of how He “hates” the Nicolaitans. It’s not often we hear from Jesus that He hates anyone! So therefore, it must be important.

Who were the Nicolaitans? They were a people who initially followed Jesus. But then they turned to an incredibly sinful life. One source says they led, “lives of unrestrained indulgence”, which sadly sounds a lot like some parts of America today! Still another source says, “many worshipped other gods, ate food sacrificed to idols, indulged in sexually immortal behaviors”…

But personally I think that their greatest sin, was they never repented. They took advantage of God’s Great Mercy and Christ’s Great sacrifice. The thought they could reap the benefits of both and continue to live anyway they wanted. Do anything they wanted. And that’s just not true.

At times, we all struggle with sin. Sometimes we even commit the same sins again. And that’s alright, because God always forgives a person who sincerely seeks forgiveness through Jesus Christ. But each person needs to seek Christ while on this earth.

And confession and repentance, besides saving us ?, are good for us. They free us! Jesus never meant for us to be weighed down by the guilt of yesterday. He loves us ?

So for our own sake, we need to confess and repent every day. And be Free 🙂

Sin & Prayer

“Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.”-Isaiah 59:1-2

Iniquities are defined as “grossly immoral or unfair behavior”. Sometimes these sins are ones we commit; sometimes they are sins of omission. Sometimes we don’t even recognize that we have sinned, but that doesn’t mean we have not.

This is truly a difficult subject to understand. And sometimes a subject we don’t want to understand. But “God is not a God of confusion”.

The above verse is pretty self-explanatory on its face. Our sin does separate us from God. There’s no getting around that. When we choose to lead a sinful life; we choose to separate ourselves from God. After all, it’s not like we don’t have access to Bibles in this country ?. So knowing what behavior is sinful and what behavior is not – is a pretty easy task, if we choose to read the Bible. And that’s the thing-God gives us that choice, for God gave us that freedom!

But there are a few things this verse does not refer to. It does not refer to the person who has previously sinned and is calling out to our Lord both for forgiveness and help in Jesus’ Name. He is so happy to hear from you and He loves you! To learn more read the Prodigal Son in Luke 15.

And it does not refer to the person who commits a sin and asks for forgiveness in Jesus’ Name. That sin is already forgiven! God hears you and God loves you!

In the coming days, regardless as to who wins the election, we will face much evil. In fact, we already do; we are surrounded by it. “War may be at the door, but Jesus already won!”

Which is exactly why we need to walk closely with God-every day! For Our Hope & Our Help Comes From The Lord. Pray. Be The Light. ?

Isaiah 59: Does Our Father Forgive Us?

Of course He does, He loves us ?

Often we read of forgiveness in the New Testament, but it also speaks of forgiveness in the Old Testament (Isaiah 59).

Isaiah 59 starts with a reminder that God is all powerful and can save and hear us. But because of our sins He could not. So clearly our sins do separate us from God. Good thing for us that we have a Savior that forgives us and wipes our slate clean. Because of His Great Sacrifice, God can hear us and we are saved ?

And in fact, towards the end of Isaiah 59, God clearly wishes to save His people, even if it is from themselves. And so He looks to find one good person who truly stands up for truth and justice, who seeks to turn the people back to God, but sadly, He can’t even find one.

So at the end of Isaiah 59, our Father promised to send a “Redeemer” to save us Himself-Jesus Christ. God could have given up on us. He could have stopped loving us. But He didn’t. God Loved Us Always. And because He loves us so, He sent Jesus to Save us.

And because Jesus came and we accepted Him as our Savior (Redeemer), we are completely forgiven. For God not only forgives our sins, He erases them.

And we should do the same for others ?