Tag: Love

Posted on

Comes with the Territory

JUNE 26

MATTHEW 6:14_Your Heavenly Father will also forgive you.

To understand forgiveness, understand your salvation.

Salvation is free. Yet it certainly was not free for Jesus. He paid an agonizing, heavy price for your sin freedom. This comes from love without boundaries. John 15:13 (KJV), “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Add another trait to God’s I AM name—HE IS love. 

When you accept Jesus as Savior and serve Him as Lord life changes. That is what salvation’s transformation does—changes lives—forever. You will never be the same. You have stepped from the path of death to life, from bondage to freedom, from despair to hope, and from hate to love.

You do not want to stray from this path. 

Salvation comes with love. Not just love for you, but love within you. A freedom and ability to love like you never knew was possible. This is how it works:

Love is a natural byproduct of salvation’s transformation.

Forgiveness is a natural byproduct of love.

You don’t have to work for natural byproducts.

They come with the territory.            

PRAYER

Mighty Jesus, Thank You for the undeniable path of salvation. In the powerful name of Jesus, Amen.

Christ gives His love to me—I will give it to others!

Posted on

Blows Me Away!

JUNE 22

MATTHEW 6:13_and the glory…

What is glory anyway? Merriam Webster defines it as worshipful praise, honor, and thanksgiving; resplendence and magnificence. That’s the Lord God! 

God uses His authority and control for good—to give love and mercy to creation. We’ve already read I John 4:17 (KJV). It needs to be repeated along with verse 16. “16 And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. 17 Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.”

God’s love can dwell in me! I can stand bold on Judgment Day. I stand bold because the power of God’s love worked within me in this life. I don’t have to wait for eternity to love like God—I can do it now. God gives me the ability to share in His glory.

God’s love shining through me gives light to my surroundings. Because it is God’s love, it shines from me with resplendence and magnificence! That blows me away!

The kingdom, and the power, and the glory belong to the Holy God of Heaven. He wants to place it inside my heart.

How can I turn that down?!          

PRAYER

Resplendent God, I praise Your glory! I worship You and all Your glory. I truly stand amazed in Your presence! In the powerful name of Jesus, Amen.

Christ is Glory—I want His glory in my life!

Posted on

My Debtors

JUNE 16

MATTHEW 6:12_as we forgive our debtors.

My debtors caused this prayer to turn around. It was fine for God to forgive my debts. Psalm 136 (KJV) says twenty-six times, “for his mercy endureth for ever.”

I feel comfortable with the fact God forgives me. That helps me overcome lies the devil uses to deceive me—that I can never be forgiven. This vertical forgiveness is from a God of true love. Jeremiah 31:3 (KJV), “The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee [you and me] with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.” 

Wow!

My debtors are those who have never paid things like:

A financial debt—money owed to me.

A verbal debt—a broken promise.

An emotional debt—harsh angry words which ripped apart every feeling of tenderness I ever possessed.

A trust debt—betrayal. 

Whatever the debt, it is still in my ledger. Before my prayer life was only concerned with God’s ledger book—now He is meddling into mine.

The Holy Spirit says things to me like, “I’m ready to erase your debts recorded in My Vertical Ledger because you are not able to pay. But, I see all kinds of unerased debts in your Horizontal Ledger. Let Me teach you a solution.”  

PRAYER

Holy God, I want to have Your mercy that endures forever.  In the powerful name of Jesus, Amen.

 Christ erased my sins—He teaches me how to erase!

Posted on

A Fly in the Ointment

  JUNE 15

MATTHEW 6:12_as we forgive our debtors.

When God pays your sin debt, the kicks you used to experience in sin begin to disappear. If they don’t, then in the words of the great Miss Clavel: “Something is not right!” (Madeline – Ludwig Bemelmans). You sin because it supplies some kind of satisfaction. It may be physical, emotional, or financial. When it no longer produces satisfaction (which is the nature of sin), you sink deeper and deeper into it. The deeper, the harder to come out.

When redeemed by the Savior, sin begins to lose its hold. There is no joy in sin for the saved. Just when things look good for the debtor, Jesus adds another piece to the pattern.

He lets a fly in the ointment!

Jesus’ prayer causes vertical forgiveness (from God to you) to be based upon horizontal forgiveness (from you to your offenders). That means to ask God to forgive you in the way you forgive those who wrong you.

I declare! Jesus just won’t let you get by with anything!

It takes a lot of love to hold people to accountability.

If you confess, repent, and ask God’s forgiveness, why should that have anything to do with those who wronged you? They need to do their own confessing.

This is more of those natural instincts of your hard heart.

The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, is your offenders and their confession is between them and God. You forgiving them is between you and God.

A clear sign you have been redeemed is you want to forgive. Old sins lose their grip and hard hearts soften! 

PRAYER

Great Redeemer, Thank You for not only saving me, but changing me. In the powerful name of Jesus, Amen.                                                               

Christ redeems me—He changes me!

Posted on

Any and All

JUNE 12

MATTHEW 6:12_And forgive us…

If Jesus taught no more than the first three words of this verse, He would have taught a vital part of prayer.         

The Scribes and Pharisees saw life as a set of laws. They had the laws down pat, snug in their hip pockets (if they had hip pockets). They knew the rules, and kept them, why would they need forgiveness? That is, if all that mattered was rule keeping.

Jesus taught life as more about loving God and each other. He taught to give more than receive. This kind of life causes me to see my weaknesses and failures. That leads me to my knees to ask God’s forgiveness. Psalm 51 (KJV), “1 Have mercy upon me [King David], O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. 3 For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. 4 Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.”

King David asks forgiveness for his sin. He also acknowledges something very important—his sin was primarily against God.

Any and all sins are against God.    

PRAYER

Forgiving God, I know when I have wronged Your people I have wronged You. Forgive me and change me!  In the powerful name of Jesus, Amen.

Christ desires to forgive—He wants me to ask Him!