forgiveness of sin

Stubborn Mules

Posted on by Betsy

Consider the poor mule. Through no fault of his own, he has gotten the reputation of being stubborn. Truth be told, mules are highly intelligent animals who are cautious and act out of a sense of self-preservation. Unlike the horse, whose first instinct is to flee, a mule will carefully consider his options for safety. If an instruction seems illogical or risky, he will refuse it. Unlike Yellow Labs, who just truly are stubborn for stubborn’s sake, the mule is a considerate thinker. We need to change our cliche to “stubborn as a Lab.”

It is amusing to see David use that phrase about mules in today’s lectionary passage. He tells us not to be like the “senseless horse or mule” that has to be led by a bridle.

Read the first two sections for clues on what David says we are being stubborn about.

Psalm 32 (Common English Bible)

2 The one whose wrongdoing is forgiven,
    whose sin is covered over, is truly happy!
2 The one the Lord doesn’t consider guilty—
    in whose spirit there is no dishonesty—
    that one is truly happy!

3 When I kept quiet, my bones wore out;
    I was groaning all day long—
    every day, every night!—
4 because your hand was heavy upon me.
    My energy was sapped as if in a summer drought. Selah

David asserted that keeping quiet about sin is an unnecessary burden that leads to great unhappiness. Refusing to confess and repent led him to groan all day and left him feeling wasted away. There is a simple solution to this, said David. Simply admit guilt, reveal your sin, and God will remove it.

5 So I admitted my sin to you;
    I didn’t conceal my guilt.
    “I’ll confess my sins to the Lord, ” is what I said.
    Then you removed the guilt of my sin. Selah

6 That’s why all the faithful should pray to you during troubled times,
    so that a great flood of water won’t reach them.
7 You are my secret hideout!
    You protect me from trouble.
    You surround me with songs of rescue! Selah

Many decades ago I had an opportunity to minister to a woman whose guilt had wasted her entire life away. We sat under a piano in a church’s Fellowship Hall until 3:00 in the morning as she poured out her life story to me. As a very young wife, she had an affair with a man of a different race. The affair resulted in a pregnancy that she was sure she could not pass off as her husband’s, so she had an abortion. Her deep guilt over the whole thing led her to self-medicate with alcohol and eventually drugs. One addiction fed another and she eventually lost her job, her marriage, and custody of her children. She met me after twenty years of this wasting. A church had reached out to her to attend the retreat I was leading, and she was working hard to live a clean life. But one thing was missing. She had never received Christ’s forgiveness, so she had never forgiven herself. Her new church had taught her about Jesus, but she was convinced that she was unworthy.

I began to talk about what happened on the cross. She was familiar with everything I said, but still stubbornly refused his forgiveness. The hour was late, the floor was cold, and the pastor was exhausted. Finally I asked her if she thought that she was so special that the redemption of the cross didn’t apply to her. I asked her if she thought that she was really so extraordinary that the power of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection was good enough for everyone but her. Did the power of her sin defeat the power of the cross because it was stronger? Then she broke. God broke that chain of being addicted to her past and set her free. The next morning she was a completely new woman. I ran into her years later and she was remarried, had finished her degree, and was a successful banker in her town.

Lent is about learning that you aren’t stronger than God. Lent is about understanding the damage of sin and how confession and repentance are the only things that will heal you. Lent is the time to uncover long-buried guilt and get rid of it.

8 I will instruct you and teach you
    about the direction you should go.
    I’ll advise you and keep my eye on you.
9 Don’t be like some senseless horse or mule,
    whose movement must be controlled
    with a bit and a bridle.

Don’t be anything like that!
10 The pain of the wicked is severe,
    but faithful love surrounds the one who trusts the Lord.
11 You who are righteous, rejoice in the Lord and be glad!
    All you whose hearts are right, sing out in joy!

So let us repent and move on. Let us rejoice and be glad! Let us sing out in joy.

And let’s stop being as stubborn as a Yellow Lab.

Playing Keep Away by Ashten Ree Avery

Self-Inflicted

Posted on by Betsy

Another sleepless night. The 4:00 wakeup call came with blaring regularity, calling me to prayer. This time I couldn’t fall back asleep and so I did what one does: After praying though the immediate issue on my mind, which involves an intercessory petition for a loved one, I began reviewing my life and all of the mistakes, missteps, missed opportunities, misdirected energies, and other untold miseries that I brought upon myself over the years. Replaying my “sin reel” seems to be a favorite middle of the night pastime for me. Do you ever do this?

The irony of this is that I know better. I know that my redeemer lives. I know that my savior has forgiven me. I know I have done due diligence in repentance and remorse and have received the blessing of having those sins washed away forever. So why do they continue to live in my mind?

It is some type of self-inflicted punishment, as it surely does not come from the Lord who forgives and forgets.

Somewhere around 5:45, I had an epiphany. If we believe God’s word to be holy and true, then we have to accept that our sins truly are cast as far away as the east is from the west. They do not exist in the mind of the Lord anymore.

Psalm 103 (Common English Bible)

Let my whole being bless the Lord!
    Let everything inside me bless his holy name!
2 Let my whole being bless the Lord
    and never forget all his good deeds:
3     how God forgives all your sins,
    heals all your sickness,
4     saves your life from the pit,
    crowns you with faithful love and compassion,
5     and satisfies you with plenty of good things
        so that your youth is made fresh like an eagle’s.

6 The Lord works righteousness;
    does justice for all who are oppressed.
7 God made his ways known to Moses;
    made his deeds known to the Israelites.
8 The Lord is compassionate and merciful,
    very patient, and full of faithful love.
9 God won’t always play the judge;
    he won’t be angry forever.
10 He doesn’t deal with us according to our sin
    or repay us according to our wrongdoing,
11     because as high as heaven is above the earth,
    that’s how large God’s faithful love is for those who honor him.

12 As far as east is from west—
    that’s how far God has removed our sin from us.

Do you know who benefits from our imprisonment to our sins? Satan. He revels in reminding us through images and whispers that we once strayed from God and should feel tainted and unworthy. But that, my friends, is his feeble attempt to undo the glory and power of what happened at the cross, and we should never, ever, buy into his lie. Get thee behind me, Satan!

In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven. In the name of Jesus Christ, I am forgiven.

Thanks be to God.

Midnight Moon by Michelle Robertson

Perfecting Imperfection

Posted on by Betsy

Our journey through Hebrews continues this week as the writer again makes the case for Jesus’ superiority as the once-and-for-all sacrifice for our sins. He points out the futile efforts of the human priests, who can’t make a dent in the sin problem, and the single sacrifice made by Jesus that wipes out sin forever. 

Hebrews 10:11-18 (Common English Bible)

11 Every priest stands every day serving and offering the same sacrifices over and over, sacrifices that can never take away sins. 12 But when this priest offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, he sat down at the right side of God. 13 Since then, he’s waiting until his enemies are made into a footstool for his feet, 14 because he perfected the people who are being made holy with one offering for all time.

15 The Holy Spirit affirms this when saying,

16 This is the covenant that I will make with them.
After these days, says the Lord,
I will place my laws in their hearts
and write them on their minds.
17 And I won’t remember their sins
and their lawless behavior anymore.[a]
18 When there is forgiveness for these things, there is no longer an offering for sin

In Eugene Peterson’s The Message, verse 14 reads like this:

 “It was a perfect sacrifice by a perfect person to perfect some very imperfect people” (Hebrews 10:14 The Message). Preach it, Eugene! We are indeed some very imperfect people. The Holy Spirit affirms our condition of imperfection and points us toward a new plan. This new covenant will be placed in our hearts and written on our minds. Thanks be to God!

The imagery of God’s new plan being written in our hearts goes a long way toward a deeper understanding of the depth of God’s plan. God desires this covenant to be engraved not just on our hearts, but in our hearts… in other words, the deepest, inside part … of our hearts. God does not desire a superficial relationship with us but wants us to present the most inner part of our souls. We are invited to love God from the “inside-out.”

 Let’s take this in a different direction now. If God provided the perfect sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins, can we really be unforgiving toward each other’s sin? And if we continue to hold grudges and refuse to forgive one another, what does that say about the power of the cross? It seems to say that our stubbornness is greater than the blood that was shed there. Everyone loves to be forgiven but we sure can be measly when it comes to forgiving others. Does that make sense? In this passage, God promises to not remember our sins and our lawless behavior anymore. This is the way we are to respond to one another, even in those situations where the offender has not asked for forgiveness.

 God calls us to forgiveness and Jesus made it conditional in the Lord’s Prayer when he said, “Forgive us our trespasses AS WE FORGIVE those who trespass against us.” The phrase “as we forgive” means that we must give as good as we have gotten. And sometimes that is very, very hard.

 Is God calling you to forgive someone today? Remember that often the burden of unforgiveness is hardest on you, not the one who hurt you. Jesus’ perfect offering wiped your slate clean. Maybe it is time for you to wipe clean all the other slates in like manner..

Old Buoy by Michelle Robertson

Where East Meets West

Posted on by Betsy

 I live on a small island off a narrow strip of land known as the Outer Banks in North Carolina. These barrier islands are so narrow at parts that you can easily see the Atlantic Ocean to the east and the Pamlico Sound to the west without turning your head. At its most narrow part, the “east” is separated by the “west” by only 150 yards. When a storm hits, east waters meet west waters and close down the narrow two-lane road, cutting off the southern part of the island from the rest of civilization. This area may be one of the only places on earth where “east meets west” as it were.

The reality of east meeting west of course is that it never happens. If you travel east, you will continually be heading east around the globe. Such is the basis of David’s metaphor in our psalm today, as he celebrates that fact that “As far as east is from west—that’s how far God has removed our sin from us” (verse 12).

Psalm 103 (Common English Bible)

God won’t always play the judge;
he won’t be angry forever.
10 He doesn’t deal with us according to our sin
or repay us according to our wrongdoing,
11 because as high as heaven is above the earth,
that’s how large God’s faithful love is for those who honor him.
12 As far as east is from west—
that’s how far God has removed our sin from us.
13 Like a parent feels compassion for their children—
that’s how the Lord feels compassion for those who honor him.

Our sins have been banished to a place that doesn’t exist; thus we suffer them no longer. This reminder of the infinite nature of God’s saving love is a blessing when we have strayed from God’s will for our lives. David’s beautiful psalm is a strong assurance of the power of the cross to obliterate our sins. The price that Jesus paid with his life is our guarantee that past sins won’t inform our present relationship with God. As David says, God won’t be angry with us forever and doesn’t deal with us according to our sin. Indeed, God deals with us according to the measure of our confession and repentance. The power of the shed blood of the atonement is the criteria upon which we will be judged … thanks be to God! Mercy reigns.

But do we believe that, or do we cling to past sins and use them as a way of beating ourselves up over and over again? It is so easy to lay our sin at the foot of the cross and then pick it up again the next day. Repeated self-condemnation of past transgressions becomes the devil’s playground, as he whispers in our ears that we aren’t worthy.

God’s faithful love says otherwise. As far as heaven is above the earth, that is the measure of God’s forgiveness and love for us.

If you are caught in a cycle of unforgiveness of your past, ask yourself this: is your sin actually greater than Christ’s crucifixion? Do you really have that much power? Isn’t holding on to past regret a form of arrogance?

God invites us to truly let go of our past and walk cleanly into the future with hope for which his Son died. Anything less diminishes the cross.

As Far as the East is to the West by Amanda Williams

Happy Are Those

Posted on by Betsy

Here is what not to do next time you are traveling. Do not put your heavy laptop in your checked baggage. I realize most of you know this. I struggle with the weight of my laptop in my carry-on, so on a recent flight I changed my routine and put it in my suitcase so I wouldn’t have to lug it around the airport. It was a direct flight … what could go wrong?

All was well until my checked bag decided to take a trip to Buffalo, N.Y. Unfortunately, I got off the plane in Norfolk, VA. Because of the lateness of the flight to Buffalo, my suitcase could not be returned to me for another day. Lesson learned.

It is hard to carry heavy things. Isn’t it lovely when you find a way to set them down?

David knew all about carrying heavy things. His many sins weighed heavily upon him. If you run a checklist of the Ten Commandments, he broke almost every one. But David also knew the joy that comes with forgiveness after you lay that heavy sin at God’s feet and repent:

Psalm 37 (New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition)

Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven,
    whose sin is covered.
2 Happy are those to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity
    and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

3 While I kept silent, my body wasted away
    through my groaning all day long.
4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;
    my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah

I have admired the sacredness of the confessional booth. While protestants do not follow a practice of confessing sins to a priest, the visual example of that ornate box while sitting in a worship service must bring comfort to Catholics during mass. It is a visible, tangible reminder of the nearness of forgiveness.

All you have to do is come.

5 Then I acknowledged my sin to you,
    and I did not hide my iniquity;
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,”
    and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah

6 Therefore let all who are faithful
    offer prayer to you;
at a time of distress, the rush of mighty waters
    shall not reach them.

God is our hiding place, where we can take our sins into the sacredness of his presence and be assured of redemption. God hears us when we confess and delivers us from the harm that sin brings.

7 You are a hiding place for me;
    you preserve me from trouble;
    you surround me with glad cries of deliverance. Selah

Are you carrying a burden of sin that is just too heavy to keep lugging around? The “confessional booth” of God’s heart is always open.

Happy Are Those by Michelle Robertson

Complacently Pleased

Posted on by Betsy

Have you ever met someone who “thought more highly of themselves than they ought”? We all know someone who is conceited, arrogant, braggadocios, and perhaps even narcissistic. They are in our family, in our workplaces, and in our church. On the one hand, it is good to have a certain measure of self-confidence and a healthy dose of self-esteem. But folks who carry that to a new level and think they are better than everyone else are hard to take.

Jesus had the same problem. In a wonderful parable told in the book of Luke, Jesus calls out the showy and self-absorbed Pharisees:

Luke 18 (The Message)

9-12 He told his next story to some who were complacently pleased with themselves over their moral performance and looked down their noses at the common people: “Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax man. The Pharisee posed and prayed like this: ‘Oh, God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, crooks, adulterers, or, heaven forbid, like this tax man. I fast twice a week and tithe on all my income.’

First, we have to admire Eugene Peterson’s choice of words in The Message. I laughed out loud at the phrases, “complacently pleased,” “looked down their noses,” and the notion that the Pharisee “posed” to pray. What vivid pictures these words conjure up! We get an image of a totally insufferable religious hypocrite.

Next, Jesus introduced a tax man as the foil to the puffed-up Pharisee. This meant a lot to the hearers of this story, because tax men of the time were the lowest form of humanity, the dredge of society, and the dirtiest scoundrels around. Like politicians, some might say.

13 “Meanwhile the tax man, slumped in the shadows, his face in his hands, not daring to look up, said, ‘God, give mercy. Forgive me, a sinner.’”

14 Jesus commented, “This tax man, not the other, went home made right with God. If you walk around with your nose in the air, you’re going to end up flat on your face, but if you’re content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself.”

So, the folks listening to the story were shocked that the tax man was the hero of the tale, and the religious man was the villain.

Jesus’ point here was the level of humble sincerity we must bring to the altar. When the tax man asked for mercy and forgiveness, acknowledging that he was a sinner, he was speaking for all of us. We are that man slumped in the shadows with our faces in our hands. That is where God meets us with his saving grace.

The show-off went home not being made right with God because the show-off couldn’t be honest about his sin. Even though he ticked the boxes of tithing and praying, his heart was insincere, and his offering was shallow.

God desires more from us. He invites us to “simply be ourselves.” What does that say to you today? We can boldly come to his throne just as we are, without one plea, and be forgiven. That level of honesty with God is all that is required to be made right. Where is God calling you to come clean and be real? It’s time to come home.

Looking for a new devotional book? Psalms by the Sea makes a great Christmas present.

Coming Home by Michelle Robertson

Come to the Table

Posted on by Betsy

Several decades ago, I had an interesting conversation with an older gentleman who was leaving my church. I respected the fact that he set an appointment with me to give his reasons. I wasn’t prepared for the answer, though.

A young couple had joined the church the Sunday prior. As was our custom, we printed their names and address in the bulletin for people to add them to their church directories. This gentleman was leaving because we allowed them to join. He said that the fact that they had two different last names and one address was an indication that they were “living in sin” and he was shocked that the church allowed them to join. He saw that as the downfall of the church, the denomination, and Western civilization as we know it.

I carefully explained that the church did not have a policy that prevented anyone from joining. I mentioned that everyone who joins comes with some measure of sin, as “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” I even tried joking with him that “you have to catch the fish before you clean the fish” and assured him that every member has come to church to be cleansed of their sins and grow closer in their understanding of God.

As I expected, my explanations fell on deaf ears and he and his wife left the church.

Jesus’ teaching is very clear that there is no hierarchy of sin and that the mission of the church is to make disciples of everyone. He had to explain this to the Pharisees at one point:

Matthew 9 (Common English Bible)

10 As Jesus sat down to eat in Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners joined Jesus and his disciples at the table.

11 But when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

12 When Jesus heard it, he said, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor, but sick people do. 13 Go and learn what this means: I want mercy and not sacrifice. I didn’t come to call righteous people, but sinners.”

The Pharisees were well known for making the public sacrifices that their religious rituals called for, but for harboring hate toward others in their heart. Jesus was radicalizing a new idea here: drop the meaningless rituals and offer mercy toward your fellow man instead.

They couldn’t do it.

Can we?

Look around. There are people in your community who live on the margins who need to be invited to Christ’s table, and maybe even to yours. Christ welcomes all to his table: the immigrants, the homeless, the kings, the addicts, the LGBTQ community, the prostitutes, the CEOs, the unwed mothers, the prisoners … he would not turn a single one of them away.

Neither should we.

Come by Alice Rogers

The Sluice Box

Posted on by Betsy

A few years ago, we took our grandchildren to a place called Dinosaur World. The day was highlighted by a stop at a gem-finding place. It was one of those venues where you purchase a bag of dirt and pour it into a tilted sluice box. Water runs through the box and washes away the dirt to reveal the hidden gems. Rose quartz, red jasper, amethysts, and other beautiful stones emerged with each washing. The kids were thrilled with their new treasure!

We are like that in a way. Every time we go before the Lord to confess our sins, we are washed in the sluice box of his forgiveness. The beauty of our potential is revealed through repentance. We emerge from this experience as humbled, forgiven people who reflect the light of Jesus in every sparkling facet.

Today’s psalm uses a powerful image of God as the Rock of our salvation. It is fitting. In the bag of rocks at the gemstone place, each gem is a small piece that was broken off from a bigger rock. To realize that God is our Rock is to acknowledge that he is our stronghold, our place of origin, and our constant source of strength and rescue. We are but small pieces, made in his image.

We are invited to come before our Rock with joyful shouts and singing:

Psalm 95 (New King James Version)

Oh come, let us sing to the Lord!
Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation.
2 Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving;
Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.

God’s greatness is our hope. Everything in heaven and on earth is his.

3 For the Lord is the great God,
And the great King above all gods.
4 In His hand are the deep places of the earth;
The heights of the hills are His also.
5 The sea is His, for He made it;
And His hands formed the dry land.

There is nothing for us to do but bow down and worship.

6 Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.
7 For He is our God,
And we are the people of His pasture,
And the sheep of His hand.

Do you need to present yourself before the Rock and find his salvation once again? Are you feeling broken, separated, small, or fragile? Do you need forgiveness to wash over you like the running water in a sluice box?

Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. In HIS hand is everything we need to make it through one more day.

The Rock of Our Salvation by Kathy Schumacher

When You Forgive, You Love

Posted on by Betsy

One of our New Year’s traditions is to watch TMC’s annual tribute to the actors, writers, and directors who passed away in the previous year. It is a sentimental overview of each one’s life and contribution to the movie arts. Every year it makes us sad, but appreciative. This year there was a very brief tribute to the great Hal Holbrook that caught my attention. They showed a clip from a Jon Krakauer movie called Into the Wild. Holbrook was talking to a young man and said this amazing line: “When you forgive, you love. And when you love, God’s light shines on you.”

As we say in my industry, that will preach.

It occurs to me in this first week of the new year that many of us are going into 2022 with the same grudges we carried in 2021 … and perhaps longer. There is a certain hypocrisy in that for believers. We fully expect that God will forgive our sins … in fact, we are counting on it. We know that Christ died for our sins, and we believe that when we approach the throne of grace with repentant hearts, our sins will be forgiven. This is the Gospel promise.

But when it comes to forgiving others, we sometimes set a higher standard than the one God sets for us. We hold onto hurts and offenses like they are oxygen masks on a plane that is crashing. We tell them over and over to anyone who will listen. We hurl them in the face of the one who inflicted the pain every chance we get. We rarely let a new argument pass without bringing up these ancient wounds, using them like a weapon to re-inflict pain back into the relationship. But rather than give us life, grudge-holding and unforgiveness only take us down in flames with the burning plane.

Listen to the wisdom that Proverbs 17 offers:

Proverbs 17 (Names of God Bible)

Whoever forgives an offense seeks love,
    but whoever keeps bringing up the issue separates the closest of friends.

This is a hard lesson today. It will require some soul searching. When an offense has become a comfortable blanket in which we wrap ourselves as a defense against the coldness of the offender, we can easily forget that God calls us to a higher account. We are reminded to forgive, even in those awful moments where forgiveness is not being sought. We are reminded to stop throwing the sin in the face of the offender.

We are reminded to seek love.

But truly, God’s direction to forgive is really for your own benefit. When you forgive, YOU are released from the offense. When you forgive, the memory of it can finally be given over to God and you don’t have to carry its heavy burden anymore. When you forgive, the prison of hurt, anger, and pain that you were trapped in is finally opened wide. You were the prisoner of the offense, not your offender, and only forgiveness can make you free.

This is not a call to forget. Remembering the source of pain helps us avoid it the next time. No one is supposed to remain in an abusive relationship after forgiveness. That is not God’s plan. Forgiving and walking away without holding onto the grudge is the best way to set ourselves free.

Are you holding onto a grudge? Do you bring up old hurts when you argue with someone you love? Do you dwell so much on past offenses that you can’t see the beauty of today?

Set yourself free. Forgive the offense and seek love. And when you love, God’s light shines on you.

God’s Light Will Set You Free by Michelle Robertson

Clean Slates

Posted on by Betsy

Our journey through Hebrews continues this week as the writer again makes the case for Jesus’ superiority as the once-and-for-all sacrifice for our sins. He points out the futile efforts of the human priests, who can’t make a dent in the sin problem, and the single sacrifice made by Jesus that wipes out sin forever:

Hebrews 10 (The Message)

11-18 Every priest goes to work at the altar each day, offers the same old sacrifices year in, year out, and never makes a dent in the sin problem. As a priest, Christ made a single sacrifice for sins, and that was it! Then he sat down right beside God and waited for his enemies to cave in. It was a perfect sacrifice by a perfect person to perfect some very imperfect people. By that single offering, he did everything that needed to be done for everyone who takes part in the purifying process.

You just have to love Eugene Peterson’s creative writing ability in this passage. ”It was a perfect sacrifice by a perfect person to perfect some very imperfect people.” Preach it, Eugene! We are indeed some very imperfect people.

The Holy Spirit confirms this:

This new plan I’m making with Israel
    isn’t going to be written on paper,
    isn’t going to be chiseled in stone;
This time “I’m writing out the plan in them,
    carving it on the lining of their hearts.”

Again, the imagery of God’s new plan being written on the lining of our hearts goes a long way toward a deeper understanding of the depth of God’s plan. God desires his covenant to be engraved not just on our hearts, but on the lining … in other words, the deepest, inside part … of our hearts. Peterson reminds us that God does not desire a superficial relationship with us, but wants us to present him with the most inner part of our souls. He literally wants us to love him from the ”inside-out.”

He concludes,

I’ll forever wipe the slate clean of their sins.

Once sins are taken care of for good, there’s no longer any need to offer sacrifices for them.

Let’s take this in a different direction now. If God provided the perfect sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins, can we really be unforgiving toward each other’s sin? And if we continue to hold grudges and refuse to forgive one another, what does that say about the power of the cross? That our stubbornness is greater than the blood that was shed there? Does that make sense?

God calls us to forgiveness. Jesus made it conditional: ”Forgive us our trespasses AS WE FORGIVE those who trespass against us.”

Is God calling you to forgive someone today? Maybe it is time for you to wipe clean all the slates.

Blustery Day by Michelle Robertson