It is good to praise the Lord, Alleluia x3; Praise Lord Alleluia x2
To You Lord be all the glory, adoration for ever more. We are clapping unto the Lord; clapping Alleluia! I will praise You Lordx2; if no body will praise You Lord. I will praise You Lord.
Beloved, hope you are sing along with me, am just in a joyous mood. If you are happy and you know, praise God! Thank You Precious and Everlasting Father, blessed be Thy Holy Name.
Whoop! Is Friday beloved, the first week of this joyous month is already on its way out. Hope each day is fulfilling and joyous? Thanks be to God in the Highest! Amen.
Today’s devotional was a promise I made last month but was unable to fulfill it because the month ended on a Friday with a different message altogether. So we will be considering “forgiveness” the kind approved by God. Why God’s kind of forgiveness, someone wants to know?
So many are under the heavy burden of unforgiveness thereby resulting to sicknesses ranging from heart disease and undiagnosed sickness but they are dying daily. Sometime the reason for unforgiveness is very genuine but it is right before God? Bitterness of heart or say unforgiveness have their victims so easily under controlled. Worst still the person against who you are angry at may not even know and he or she is living fine while you are undergoing pains.
There are difficult people all around us no doubt but the choice to love, to forgive and to let go is yours. When are embittered about something or someone, your heart is heavily under pressure and you are edgily as well. Always moody, not smiling in fact you are reducing your life span unknowing to you. Don’t forget the devil is the chief architect.
So what shall a child of God do in a situation like this? Good question. Come along with me as we look into the perfect law of liberty:
“For if you forgive people their wrongdoing, your heavenly Father will forgive you as well.
But if you don’t forgive people, your Father will not forgive your wrongdoing.”—Matthew 6:14–15
Perhaps you consider yourself a forgiving person, but you are now facing someone whom you cannot forgive. Whenever you struggle to forgive, you need to revisit what you were like when God first forgave you. Ephesians 2 indicates you were a “foreigner” and a “child of wrath.” Yet God forgave your most grievous sin and rebellion against Him. While you were still rejecting God, Christ died for you (Rom. 5:8). This being so, how can you refuse to forgive those who sin against you?
Forgiveness is not a spiritual gift, a skill, or an inherited trait. Forgiveness is a choice. Jesus looked down on those who had ruthlessly and mockingly nailed Him to a cross, yet He cried out: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do” (Luke 23:34). How, then, can we refuse to forgive those who have committed offenses against us?
Jesus said that the measure in which we are forgiving is the same standard God will use in forgiving us. God’s ways are very different from ours. God’s forgiveness is not based on standards we determine, but on the standards He established in His Word. God allows for no exceptions when it comes to forgiveness.
As we truly understand God’s gracious forgiveness in our lives, we will naturally want to express this same forgiveness to others (Eph. 4:32; Col. 3:13). Before you ask God for His forgiveness, take a moment to examine the condition of your relationships. Would you want God to forgive you in the same way you are presently forgiving others?
This type forgiveness may not be easy to come by except with help of the Holy Spirit. They are children of God, I mean ministers of God that are living in unforgivness. This is the trick of the devil to keep them in bond. I have shared this before now in one of the devotional in the early stage of this ministry. It is not by power but by the grace of God.
There was a time that I was very embittered over some issues and the person involved was very deliberate about it. It took a discovered from the Word of God to liberate me. Please read (Matt 5:44-48) if you want to be liberated from the bondage of unforgiveness.
I took a deliberate step to go above it. Firstly, I seek help. A servant of God once said that you have to love not because you want to love (carnal nature) but you must love because God command it. Another servant of God preached on “Advance forgiveness”. Have you heard about it before now? Secondly I search for the truth in Word. Honour God. How? By allowing the Holy Spirit to love through you (1Jn 3:10-12; 4:7-13; 2Cor 3:17). Thirdly, nobody is worth you’re going to hell.
Rev 21:27 says “nothing of impurity will be found in heaven”. God also said “be thou holy for I Am Holy” (1Pet 1:16). This then become my slogan “nothing worth my going to hell, so I choose to love even when it is not convenient”. Beloved, before you know it, I get over it and begin to love as if there was no challenge ever before now. Beloved, is doable. Go with me a litter further:
“Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible.” 1Peter 1:23
Peter most earnestly exhorted the scattered saints to love each other “with a pure heart fervently” and he wisely fetched his argument, not from the law, from nature, or from philosophy, but from that high and divine nature which God hath implanted in His people.
Just as some judicious tutor of princes might labour to beget and foster in them a kingly spirit and dignified behaviour, finding arguments in their position and descent, so, looking upon God’s people as heirs of glory, princes of the blood royal, descendants of the King of kings, earth’s truest and oldest aristocracy, Peter saith to them, “See that ye love one another, because of your noble birth, being born of incorruptible seed; because of your pedigree, being descended from God, the Creator of all things; and because of your immortal destiny, for you shall never pass away, though the glory of the flesh shall fade, and even its existence shall cease.” It would be well if, in the spirit of humility, we recognized the true dignity of our regenerated nature, and lived up to it.
What is a Christian? If you compare him with a king, he adds priestly sanctity to royal dignity. The king’s royalty often lieth only in his crown, but with a Christian it is infused into his inmost nature. He is as much above his fellows through his new birth, as a man is above the beast that perisheth. Surely he ought to carry himself, in all his dealings, as one who is not of the multitude, but chosen out of the world, distinguished by sovereign grace, written among “the peculiar people” and who therefore cannot grovel in the dust as others, nor live after the manner of the world’s citizens.
Let the dignity of your nature, and the brightness of your prospects, O believers in Christ, constrain you to cleave unto holiness, and to avoid the very appearance of evil.
Are you blessed? Are willing to forgive that person or group now? In very thing let us be obedient to the commandments of God. Better still, take your life precious and live gloriously (Gal 5:13; Eph 6:10; Jn 8:12; Jude 21). Have a lovely weekend. See you again on Monday God’s willing.
Remain blessed in the Lord.
