Forgiveness

Luke 17:1-5
1 One day Jesus said to his disciples, "There will always be temptations to sin, but how terrible it will be for the person who does the tempting. 2 It would be better to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around the neck than to face the punishment in store for harming one of these little ones. 3 I am warning you! If another believer sins, rebuke him; then if he repents, forgive him. 4 Even if he wrongs you seven times a day and each time turns again and asks forgiveness, forgive him." 5 One day the apostles said to the Lord, "We need more faith; tell us how to get it."
This is really a neat passage to me, if you think about it forgiveness is probably the area most looked over in people's lives. So often we are so quick to get mad when we feel like we have been done wrong, but Jesus basically says "who cares what anybody does to you, forgive them." Have you ever taken the time to think if God really wants us to forgive in every circumstance?
Well the amazing part of this passage is that Jesus is talking about forgiveness and the disciple's first statement is asking for faith. The disciples reply to Jesus seems to give the impression that they heard him and then said "yea, yea, that's nice but tell us about this faith stuff, we want to do some cool things." Today as I was reading this passage, I was hit with a whole different perspective. The disciples in their reply simply realized something far to many people never do, they realized that forgiveness at the level Jesus required cannot be achieved without faith. So often we are guilty of trying to make ourselves forgive, and yet it seems that the harder we try to forgive, the harder it is. Man does not have the righteousness level needed to forgive when we have been treated wrong. True forgiveness, complete real forgiveness, is only attainable by trusting Jesus to work through us, so that we can forgive people as he requires of us. What a great feeling to truly forgive someone to the extent, that even when they wrong you again, you don't remember about the past times that you have been done wrong.
What a wonderful, beautiful, and free life we can have if only we decide to believe Jesus in every single circumstance.

Oh This Is Good

Ephesians 3:10 God's purpose in all this was to use the church to display His wisdom in its rich variety to all unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.
Ephesians 6:12 For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.

I have never understood the whole evil spirits in heavenly places stuff, but I accept it. The thing that gets me excited here is that if you put these verses together, you instantly get a complete package.
Many people are famaliar to some degree with Ephesians 6:12 but I would imagine Ephesians 3:10 is not very well known. Thoughout the Bible God is constantly telling us to get our eyes off the physical circumstances and physical obstacles and to look at things from a spiritual view point. For example, a person involved in adultery has a spirit problem and the physical actions are only because of the spiritual problem. To know God is to love Him, and to love Him is to obey Him. So therefore any disobedience to God, or any insecurity or selfishness problem or pride is not just a person's character, but the person's character is a reflection of their spiritual condition.
Well maybe it will be easier to fight off these evil powers and authorities if we recognize our high calling as the body of Christ. Ephesians 3:10 says that the purpose of the Church (followers of Jesus Christ worldwide) is to show off God, His wisdom, His power. What an awesome privilege to be the object that God points to, in order to show the devil why the evil powers and authorities are the losers. God has designed and appointed believers to be powerful people of faith, who walk and live in a manner that shames the devil.
To me that is a reminder of the high calling and responsiblity God has given, and also a reminder of the power He has given to those who believe, to cast out devils, heal the sick, raise the dead, and most importantly convict those who don't know Him and bring them to repentance. Let's walk in that power today. Let's honor Him as a people He can point to and tell the evil power and authorities "look at what I just did."

Gotta Figure This Out

Well I will start blogging soon. I think I got things about ready to go.