Christmas Greetings 2023

Coffee with the Guys.

What about forgiveness?

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Walking in the light.

 Today I had the privilege of leading the worship at the Parkrose Village United Church. Lesley played the piano.

The theme was on forgiveness from a very challenging passage in Matthew 18. Look up the various translations on the Bible Gateway website.

Here is the order of service.

Welcome and Opening Prayer

Hymn: “God of Mercy,God of Grace” 218 3v

Announcements: Geoff

Bible reading: Matthew 18:21-35Living Bible (TLB) Pat

Hymn: “Here at thy Table Lord” 238 4v

Communion:

Offering: 

Church Prayer: Geoff. (Include the Lord’s Prayer)

Hymn:”Open my eyes Lord” 172 4v 

Sermon: “What about forgiveness?”  Geoff 

Hymn: “God forgave my sin” 3 verses.

Benediction and Vesper:  Now unto Him

Here is the sermon outline which had a few off the cuff remarks added as we went.  

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Sermon:

What price forgiveness?

Or What about forgiveness?

This passage we had read today is one of the most challenging in the New Testament.

Many seemingly fine Christians find it a great stumbling block.

It seems a very hard teaching.

Let’s talk about forgiveness.

You might know someone who has been seriously hurt by someone else’s behavior.

It may even be you, or me.

This has been a serious hurt and very wrong.

It might be a sudden action,

 a one off,

or it might be something that happened over many years.

How do we deal with it?

When we read todays reading it is obvious as Christians we need to forgive those who have wronged us.

For us to go up to someone and say you should forgive  that person,

for what they did to you,

 while it might be well intentioned,

it can be met with a very painful reaction.

You might be met with the retort;

“Why should I?

“Why should I forgive?”

Not after what they have done to me or my family!”

The person reacting like this obviously is suffering from very painful memories and sometimes physical scars of what has been done to them.

Some might say I know I have to forgive but I can’t.

 It was too bad!

 what was done!

to me!

I was hurt so much!

In any case I can’t forgive until I feel I can!

And I can’t forgive until I see justice served.

Until I get my revenge!

So if it is so hard for people to do this what is the consequences of our unforgiveness?

Before we tackle that let’s get back to our own forgiveness by God.

Was it because He loves us?

Yes it is.

He does love us,

 but not because we are good people worthy of His love.

Our forgiveness is not based on any good qualities He sees in us!

His love for us is unconditional.

His forgiveness is the result of His sacrifice for us,

His death on the cross,

In reality we are no better than anyone else.

It is only through God’s providence,

 and how we have been blessed,

that we have not committed the horrible things that others do.

Given the same  circumstances, we are quite capable of the same evil.

If we think we are above others we are fooling ourselves.

We don’t understand the Gospel.

The consequences of our un-forgivness of others are many.

Unforgiveness in our hearts can cause us:

 to lose sleep.

to become emotionally crippled and withdrawn,

to always be full of anger,

to have a short fuse,

to be super critical and judgemental of everyone,

to be full of fear,

to never have any joy,

to have all sorts of pyschosomatic illnesses,

like ulcers and other things,

and the list can go on and on.

Our unforgiveness will cut us off from really knowing the peace and fellowship of God.

That’s why our passage today tells us we should forgive 70x7.

So, two things to ponder!

1.  Our lack of forgiveness is sin.

God clearly requires us to forgive when we read the scriptures.

What caused our distress in the first place was likely the sin of someone else.

We don’t have to say “well that person was quite ok to do what they did!”

We don’t have to feel love for them before we exercise our forgiveness.

Forgiveness is an act of the will.

It is not a feeling!

We use our will power to forgive and ask God to help us with that.

If we are walking in the Light, as He is in the Light, continuing in unforgivness is not an optional extra.

The passage read to us today is very severe in it’s consequences.

I don’t think it is saying we lose our salvation if we don’t forgive others, but it is saying our unforgiveness will cause us a lifetime of grief.

The second thing to ponder.

2.Healing from the effect of other people’s sin.

Healing from all these consequences will often only come about as we forgive the perpetrators but also as we ask Jesus to heal our many unhappy memories.  

Often we have things deep down that we have suppressed.

Hurts that we have suffered even as little children.

 We are not necessarily conscious of them.

We just know things aren’t right.

We can ask Jesus through His Holy Spirit to heal us of these unhappy memories.

In summary,

 if we truly forgive others,

 from our hearts,

it will be,

 that for those we have forgiven,

 they will sense a change in us, if we are still in contact.

Often the person who has wronged us is full of guilt themselves .

It is important that we know how to forgive ourselves,

 but also how wonderful when the person we have wronged forgives us.

How wonderful is reconciliation with someone when it really takes place.

The disciples of Jesus remonstrated  with Jesus over Mary, the prostitute, who anointed Him with expensive perfume.

Jesus told them “Where much has been forgiven, the same shall love so much.”

Folks we are so blessed to have received the Grace of God.

To know God’s forgiveness.

One of the statements I hear often these days, and you do to, is when someone being interviewed on TV, often after a court case says “well now we might have some “closure”.

They know in reality that there is not closure even when justice seemingly has been served.

The wrong that has been done is still not healed,

The only true statement and act of “closure” was by Jesus on the cross.

He said. “It is finished!”

The reason He came to earth was accomplished.

He had finished His work so that His cross could become active in our lives.

The work of reconciliation and forgiveness and healing.

I close with a reasonably well known story of Corrie Ten Boom.

Corrie and her family were locked up in a prison camp in the second world war.

It was one of those places where many Jews and their supporters were murdered in the gas chambers.

Corrie and her family were imprisoned there because thay had been hiding Jewish people in their house in Holland.

The Ten Booms were a fine Christian family.

Corrie was the only one who was released eventually from the prison.

The only one of her family.

While in the prison Corrie and her family were treated very badly and she witnessed her sister, on one occasion, being badly beaten by one of the guards.

After the war Corrie became a Christian author and travelled around the world conducting Christian meetings throughout Europe.

At one of these meetings she was approached afterwards by a man who said this to her.

“Frauline, I was a guard in your prison, I am a Christian now. Will you please forgive me?

He extended his hand to her.

Corrie immediately recognized him as the man who had cruelly beaten her sister.

Her memories and image of her sister suffering at the hands of this man came flooding back.

She thought how can I possibly do this?

She thought I can’t,

Look what he did to Betsy,

but she knew she had to forgive him as a Christian.

She asked God to give her the power to take his hand.

She grasped his hand in forgiveness.

She said she felt a current of love run through from her head to her toes as she did this.

You can imagine what this meant to this contrite man.

I am going to pray now and ask God to help us, if we are harboring unforgiveness, to really forgive from the heart.

We will thank Him for our own forgiveness,

 that we don’t deserve,

that was bought for us on the cross.

 We will ask Jesus to heal our often damaged emotions that might be buried deep down.

Shall we pray?

The Cross of Christ

The western world has been reeling from the terrible attacks on Paris.
By really wicked men.
The answers to such wickedness maybe a lot closer than we think.
It begins with us.

People are in a grip of fear,

The only answer to fear and evil is the Cross of Jesus Christ.

I provide a link to one of my first posts on this blog.

You can listen to the audio and the transcript.

Let God speak to you through this message,

It is a message of foregiveness,

 redemption,

  triumph over evil,

    the expose of our hypocrosies,

       the only answer to the unseen rulers of this world.

Ignore the fact that just a man is delivering it.

Just suppose God is speaking.

If you have switched off to God it will not mean a thing.
Just maybe there is still a glimmer of light shining through the darkness in your personal being.
I hope and pray so.

http://geoffthompsonsblog.blogspot.com.au/2009/09/the-cross-of-christ.html

A Child shall lead them.

Here is a message of Christian love and forgiveness expressed so wonderfully by a 10 year old girl displaced from home by ISIS.
Be inspired.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ige6CcXuMg

Pray for Myriam and her friends and her enemies.

Forgiveness and the Judgement Seat of God

This message was shared with the Renmark West Uniting Church Congregation and The Renmark Town UC on 14/9/14

Passages read in service.

Bible Passages

The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant
21 Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”
22 Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.[g]
23 “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold[h] was brought to him. 25 Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
26 “At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ 27 The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
28 “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins.[i] He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.
29 “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’
30 “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.
32 “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ 34 In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
35 “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

Romans 14 New International Version (NIV)
The Weak and the Strong
14 Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. 2 One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. 3 The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them. 4 Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand.
5 One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. 6 Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. 7 For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. 8 If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. 9 For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.
10 You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister[a]? Or why do you treat them with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. 11 It is written:
“‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord,
‘every knee will bow before me;
    every tongue will acknowledge God.’”[b]
12 So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.


Sermon

I think I have brought a message on forgiveness here before but I am not sure.
If I have some of this may be a bit repetitive.
It is a theme I try to get across to any who will listen.
Also in our readings today we have a passage about the Judgement Seat of Christ.
What is that all about?
Are we, as Christians, involved in that judgement?
So I am going to draw on both these passages read to us today and try to tie them together a little.
I have revisited a sermon I heard many years ago from a visiting preacher at our Church in Adelaide to help me in this message.
So a little bit about Judgements, a little bit about salvation and a little bit about forgiveness today.
When I say little bit it just means I don't have a lot of time today to enlarge on those themes but they are very important parts of the being Christian and living the Christian life.
Firstly I will touch on the judgement side of things.
And the first thing I would like to say is that our salvation is based on the grace of God, not our good works.
The Bible tells us that quite clearly our salvation is based on grace not works lest any man should boast.
There are steps quite clearly outlined in the Bible that enable us to come to Salvation by grace and we should makes sure we know those  steps and have followed them.
If anyone here today feels that they don't really understand or know if they are saved I am happy to talk with you after the service or during the week even on the phone. You also have your Pastor to consult as well of course and any other elders in the church.
So as far as Judgements are concerned there are several mentioned in the Bible.
Some in the past and some yet to come.
Adam and Eve were Judged, the nation of Israel was judged,the Tower of Babel brought about a judgment where people were scattered and languages were confused,
in the days of Noah a judgement was carried out,the earth was flooded.
Sodom and Gomorrah were judged.
There is a future Judgement of Nations,
there is a great white throne judgement for unbelievers,
there is a judgement of the devil to come although he has already been defeated on the Cross.
This passage today is speaking about us.
The judgement of believers.
We heard the following read earlier.
10 You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister[a]? Or why do you treat them with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. 11 It is written:
“‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord,
‘every knee will bow before me;
    every tongue will acknowledge God.’”[b]
12 So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.

This Judgement seat of Christ,  is not about our Salvation, this about what have we done with the gifts God has given us.
It has nothing to do with any so called rank we might have in the Church.
We may  be people who have cleaned the kitchen taken part in committees, church councils, counted the money, been pastors or elders or counsellors etc. These are all things we humanly rank in order of importance but not so with God.
It is about how we have served God!
Was it so we could be patted on the back or out of genuine sense of service and humility before our God?
In 1 Corinthians 3:11–15 we read this

11 For no one can lay a ufoundation other vthan that which is laid, wwhich is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— 13 xeach one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed yby fire, and zthe fire will test what sort of work each one has done. 14 If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, ahe will receive a reward. 15 If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, bbut only as through fire.
This is really talking about the Judgement for believers.The Judgement seat of Christ.
Notice that Gold and Silver and Precious stones is refined by fire or testing if you like.
The wood hay and stubble is consumed by fire and has no substance.
The wood, hay and stubble  are the things we might have done ion our lives,having an appearance of Godliness, but really only for our own standing.
So someone might pat us on the back.
But notice this. "15 If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, bbut only as through fire."
We will suffer loss, but we will be saved!
We will not have much to wear at they marriage Supper of the Lamb.
To give you some idea of what that loss may look like or feel like I am going to read a poem by a lady called Martha Snell Nicholson.
It goes like this.

"When I stand at the judgment seat of Christ
And He shows me His plan for me,
The Plan of my life as it might have been
Had He had His way, and I see
How I blocked Him here, and I checked Him there,
And I would not yield my will --
Will there be grief in my Savior's eyes,
Grief, though He loves me still?
 He would have me rich, and I stand there poor,
Stripped of all but His grace,
While memory runs like a hunted thing
Down the paths I cannot retrace.
Then my desolate heart will well-nigh break
With the tears that I cannot shed;
I shall cover my face with my empty hands,
I shall bow my uncrowned head..
Lord of the years that are left to me,
I give them to Thy hand;
Take me and break me, mould me to
The pattern Thou hast planned!"

Powerful words aren't they.
We should be reminded at this point we cannot undo things we have said and many things we have done, but we can press forward in the years that are left to us as wiser people and practice more of God's grace..
We have to leave the things we can't fix in Jesus hands.
We have to let Jesus mould us and break us to the point it is no longer we that live but Christ who lives in me.
Now taking up the verses we had before about forgiveness.
"32 “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ 34 In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
35 “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

When you read this you might think that if I don't forgive my brother or anyone else, I might lose my salvation.
But salvation is not by works and this is a work that we have been found wanting in.
As outlined in the passage above about standing before God at the Judgement seat, I believe that this unforgiveness does not  cause our salvation to be forfeited.
It does however, if we don't forgive from the heart,cut us off from fellowship with God,from having our prayers answered, from knowing freedom that only Christ can give.
We can walk around pretending we are happy and have it together, but if we harbor resentment and unforgiveness, we  know in our inner being  we are only fooling ourselves.
I would like to remind us all here that to forgive is an act of the will.
It is not a situation where I don't feel any love for that person therefore I cannot forgive..
   It is an act of the will where we declare our unconditional forgiveness because that is what our Lord and Saviour has done for us.
We can be really helped in all of these things we should be doing as Christians by the fact that God never asks us to do anything that we cannot do through Christ who strengthens us.
Many words of the Bible sit in judgement on us because we cannot possibly meet the standards set out.
We say the Christian life is too hard and all theses things are the ideal way we should live but we  can't possibly attain them.
BUT,
we can!
How then?
The commands and demands God makes upon us are not to us at all.
They are made to the life of Jesus in us.
If we latch on to this and make it genuinely real in our lives,
then the life God demands of us becomes surprising easy.
Most Christians receive  very little teaching or instruction  on
this wonderful aspect of Christian living.
It is "CHRIST IN YOU"
Jesus living His life through us.
This is the secret of living the Christian life.
If we are Christians the living Christ is in us.
He can empower us if we make Him Lord, not just our Saviour
A verse to finish to remind us of God's amazing grace.
8 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you[a] free from the law of sin and death.

At this point I read to the Congregation from a devotional book by Frank Hunting. A piece called "The Answer". I will add this later this week.

What price,forgiveness?

I follow a blog by an Anglican minister ,Daniel Owen, who lives in Ireland.
In his Good Friday sermon just gone he starts off with an amazing story of a man being pardoned by his victim's mother.
Daniel's sermon you can read in full if you follow the link below.
Also you will find the link on the story just mentioned.
It is wonderful the young man was pardoned but how sad that so called "blood" money was required to obtain his release and forgiveness.
Each of us in this age of Grace have the wonderful privilege that Jesus offers us forgiveness of Sin, eternal life and so much more through his death and resurrection and the shedding of His blood.

http://imprintsoflight.wordpress.com/2014/04/19/sermon-for-good-friday-2014/

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-27070087

Bible Verses less Followed or Ignored

There are passages in the Bible that you seldom hear a sermon about.
They seem to be conveniently glossed over even by those who believe they are Bible based Christians.
One if simply adhered to and believed would solve a lot of doctrinal differences.
eg when we receive the Holy Spirit and what we must do to be saved.
That is Acts 2:38
Below is a little to show context.
One should read the whole chapter.
 "Acts 2

³⁶ “Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.”

³⁷ When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”
³⁸ Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. ³⁹ The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”
⁴⁰ With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” ⁴¹ Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day."

Another is the whole chapter about the Lord's Prayer and also the neccesity for Christians to forgive. 
Just part of Matthew 6 should be enough.
"Matthew 6
⁵ “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. ⁶ But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. ⁷ And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. ⁸ Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
⁹ “This, then, is how you should pray:

“‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
¹⁰ your kingdom come,
your will be done,
    on earth as it is in heaven.
¹¹ Give us today our daily bread.
¹² And forgive us our debts,
    as we also have forgiven our debtors.
¹³ And lead us not into temptation,^[a]
    but deliver us from the evil one.^[b]’

¹⁴ For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. ¹⁵ But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins."

When we pray the Lord's Prayer do we really want God to forgive us the way we forgive others.
Many of us are very unforgiving.
It is not optional for the Christian to forgive it is essential. 
It is important to note that God never asks us to do anything that we cannot do in His strength and it is always for our own good and that of others.

Reconciliation-Why it matters.

Reconciliation!

What a word that promises so much but seldom is carried out or witnessed.
Jesus is the great reconciler.
He alone gives us the power to be reconciled with the un-reconcileable.
Reconciliation has to go arm in arm with forgiveness.
We must not wait to feel forgiveness.
It is an act of the will.
It is not an emotion we feel.
It is something Jesus demands of us who call ourselves Christians.
If forgiveness was offerred and reconciliation sort after the world would be a vastly different place.
How much bitterness and suffering comes from those two words "Irreconcileable differences"

Take some steps today.

Make it right!

Make yourself right with God and the one who has wronged you.
Use the link below for some help on this.

http://geoffthompsonsblog.blogspot.com.au/search?updated-min=2009-01-01T00:00:00%2B10:30&updated-max=2010-01-01T00:00:00%2B10:30&max-results=2

What about Forgiveness? by R. G. Weeks

I came across this booklet in the papers of my wife's late Aunty Doreen. It is a much needed teaching for Christians. There are many Christians walking around supposedly ok on the outside but they are often consciuosly or unconsciouly walking around with deep bitterness and unforgiveness in their hearts which will rob them of the freedom in Christ that is available to them.Many push these things down in an effort to protect themselves from further hurt, but this  ensures they remain emotional cripples.R. G. Weeks also wrote another book called "My Mother and God" which I will scan and place on this blog sometime.I am not sure if R. G. Weeks is alive or not but no doubt some of his family are. To them I say what a wonderful Christian Heritage he and his mother gave his family.

The Absolute Essential Need to Forgive

By Geoff Thompson

To be delivered at Parkrose Village Service on Sunday 22/10/11

These last few days I have been pretty much incapacitated with a  very knotted up back.

Only now as I write this is it starting to free up a little.

Consequently I haven’t been able to do too much but I have watched a couple of movies on my computer.

One was about 4 Photographers in South Africa who documented the atrocities of things hapenning in South Africa up to the  change in that Govt’s policy on Apartheid

ie. The discrimination against black people in that country.

The movie was pretty horrible and these photographers seemed driven by different forces.

One force was to expose the atrocities to bring about change

 and the other seemed linked to their own needs for adventure and danger and winning awards for their work.

Indeed one of them, not long after he won a pullitzer prize for his depiction of a young starving girl in Sudan kneeling in the sand with a vulture threateningly waiting in the background , committed suicide from a build up of the many times he had witnessed man’s inhumanity to man.

This movie and others I watched led me to again thinking about the need we have to forgive.

Just this week we have once again seen the terrible scenes on television which   brought about the assassination of Colonel Gaddafi.

Only a few months ago it was Osama Bin Laden who had been executed without any sort of trial.

These men committed horrible atrocities in their lifetimes and we all would look at their lives and say “how could they have done that? , we could never behave like that.”

And yet consider the following devotional piece: It’s called

        

“How Good are you?”

“Don’t feel satisfied

With the apparently good life

You are living,or

ever feel superior to someone

not doing as well as you are

in the business of living.

Jesus,

who knows more about

the human heart

than anyone else says

there is nothing good in you.

You are capable of doing

the same things you see anyone else doing.

The reason you don’t do what some others do

is because there have been all sorts of safeguards round you that have kept you from doing what they do.

Remove those safeguards

And you can do

What anyone else has done.

Jesus says:

“ for from within,

                  out of the heart….”

It is all there,

All the evil

This world has ever known

In the hearts of men.

And, we are men(and women)

If you are not doing the evil of other men,

You will be wise to recognise

The reason.

You are being saved

By THE GRACE OF GOD.”

So we say to ourselves

“I could never forgive that person, look at what they did to me.

I am now in such a mess because of what they did!”

It is true they may have done something terrible but Jesus does not ask us to forgive with out good cause  for these reasons;

(1)  He will always gives us the power through His Holy Spirit to forgive someone unconditionally if we will to do so.

(2)  He does not say we should forgive because what that person did was of no consequence, but;  because we are just as capable of doing the same to someone else during similar circumstances. That’s why he went to the Cross for all mankind.

(3)  He knows, and as His command for us is to forgive, that if we don’t forgive we will never know the joy of the Lord.

As in Matthew 18:32-35 we are going to be bound in our own prison of bitterness for the rest of our lives if we refuse to forgive.

V35” This is how my Heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from the Heart”

Our prayers are not going to get too far while we harbour bitterness.

Well you might say but I just cannot forgive  it was too bad, too cruel!

 well consider this example.

Also this week I have been listening again to Dr Helen Roseveare tell her story of life as a missionary doctor in the Belgian Congo during the civil war that erupted there in the 1950’s.

She tells how many of her colleagues were put to death and also raped.

She was captured and raped.

During this ordeal she prayed to God and asked why He was expecting her to go through this.

She got an answer that enabled her too deal with it and even forgive.

She says the Lord Jesus made it clear to her that He was thanking her for allowing Him the privilege  to use Her body to work out His Grace in the situation.

Not to be thankful for what was happening to her but that Jesus had entrusted her with this experience.

It wasn’t until sometime later talking in a Christian convention for women that she learned why He had allowed this to happen to her.

There was a young attractive women sitting in the audience whose face was blank of expression and life during the whole talk.

Afterwards she found out that this young woman had not talked anyone for 2 months and was in a state of shock.She had shown no emotion in that time.

She too had suffered rape.

But this young woman was able to come forward and embrace Dr Helen as the words and experience of Dr Helen who had been through a similar ordeal was able to set her free from the bondage she was in.

God does not give our need to forgive others as an optional extra.

We have read in the Lord’s prayer and prayed it many times.

“ forgive us our trespasses as we have forgiven those who have trespassed against us.”

Do we really want God to forgive us how we forgive others?

 If you need help in knowing how to forgive someone from the heart, whether they be dead or still living ask someone such as one of your Chaplains or a Christian who you consider to be mature in their Faith to help you to do that.

I will finish off today with some of the wonderful words from the other Lord’s Prayer found in John 17 v 24-26

It is part of Jesus  prayer for us and on that continues for us as He intercedes

   

John 17:24-26

New Living Translation (NLT)

²⁴ Father, I want these whom you have given me to be with me where I am. Then they can see all the glory you gave me because you loved me even before the world began!

 ²⁵ “O righteous Father, the world doesn’t know you, but I do; and these disciples know you sent me. ²⁶ I have revealed you to them, and I will continue to do so. Then your love for me will be in them, and I will be in them.”

 Today's Bible Reading

Matthew 6:9-19

New Living Translation (NLT)

⁹ Pray like this:
   Our Father in heaven,
      may your name be kept holy.
   ¹⁰ May your Kingdom come soon.
   May your will be done on earth,
      as it is in heaven.
   ¹¹ Give us today the food we need,^[a]
   12 and forgive us our sins,
      as we have forgiven those who sin against us.
   ¹³ And don’t let us yield to temptation,^[b]
      but rescue us from the evil one.^[c]
 14 “If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. ¹⁵ But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins.