Easier said than done, I know!
I am a living witness to this! lol!
But each day I live and learn from my mistakes and victories in this contest we call life I am convinced that you can never misspell Love or FORGIVEness... Or grace and mercy for that matter! lol!
So why am I spelling forgiveness L-O-V-E?
*Because I have been forgiven because of God's love to me thru the life, death, burial and ressurrection of Jesus Christ!
*The Bible say's we love God because He first loved us. So I desire to live a life with a love for others, because He commands us to. No matter how hard we make it to be.
*And a love for ourselves, trust me! its for our own good.
I am learning more and more that forgiveness is hardly ever about the person who wronged us, but about us learning to forgive them. And what a process that is. But I am encouraged to know that, it is in forgiveness that we are forgiven and can live in freedom to live, move on and love.
I know that this world is filled with so much pain and evil. People have done some horrific things to others in this world. How can one stand to move on from such terrible experiences? I don't want you to think that I have it all figured out because I don't. i can only go by my own personal experiences and help those along the way. I do not have the anawers to life's hard, complicated questions. I know the PERSON WHO HAS THE ANSWER AND IS THE ANSWER AND CAN SAVE ALL THOSE WHO CALL UPON HIS NAME! I KNOW OF ONE WHO CAN SET ALL CAPTIVES FREE! I KNOW OF ONE WHO CAN HEAL ALL WOUNDS! HIS NAME IS JESUS!
The Greatest EXAMPLE of all TiMe: JESUS
Stretched out his arms on that rugged cross! Bled, died and rose again!
Still forgiving us for our many, many sins with His unconditional love!
I am convinced that when I think on that alone...How much more can I do to forgive and love those wrong-doers in my life.
We are always going to have wrong-doers to keep us humble and at the face of Jesus.
1 John 3: 16-21
16This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. 17If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? 18Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. 19This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence 20whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
21Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. 23And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. 24Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.
1 John 4: 7-197Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
13We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God.
16And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. 17In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. 18There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
19We love because he first loved us. 20If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. 21And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.
Amen & Amen.
Let me encourage you while I encourage myself:
There are so many bad experiences we have in this world that causes us to not want to forgive, love or live but, it is in those hard lessons of life that builds us up and makes us strong to be able to live on.
The apostle Paul boldly speaks out to the Corinthian church and to us about what love really is. As eloquent as it sounds he really is letting them (and us, the hearers and do-ers of the Word) have it in a way that is putting us in our place about what we think love is. Basically what he is saying is. You are not showing love to others..."And now I will show you a most excellent way" to love...
It is then in the famous 1 Corinthians 13 passage that he explains how to love and what love really is and what it is not.
So we read 1 Corinthians 13 as a reminder to us on how we should treat oneanother.
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Let us look at FORGIVENESS and LOVE in a new light.
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